Williams drivers target those of Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas continues his strong momentum from Bahrain, finishing 4th. However, Felipe Massa made a mistake on his last lap, dropping him to 9th place. Both Williams hope to be able to compete with the Ferraris.
For Valtteri Bottas, there is only one rival, and it’s Ferrari. Thus, the Finnish driver’s main objective is to get ahead of at least one Ferrari by the end of tomorrow’s race: « It always feels good to split the Ferraris. We knew that if everything went well, we could be close, and that’s what happened. We extracted the maximum. If we can make a good start and choose a good strategy, we might be able to do like in Bahrain and keep one of the Ferraris behind us. »
However, he knows that the task won’t be easy since the Reds often perform better in races than during qualifying: « We have improved our race pace over the last few weeks, but we know that Ferrari is always strong over long stints. It’s up to us to do what’s necessary to stay ahead. »
For Felipe Massa, the mission will be to make up for missed qualifications, which saw him finish in 9th position. The main reason is that the Brazilian was forced to make a second run in Q2. Consequently, he was only able to do one lap in Q3. Unfortunately, he made a mistake, which pushed him to the end of the top 10: « I’m disappointed because we made a mistake in the third corner during my fast lap in Q3. I went off track, which cost me a lot of time. I had to use two sets of Option tires in Q2 to make sure I advanced. So, I could do only one lap in Q3. Without that mistake, I could have finished in the top 5. »
He will start just behind Kimi Räikkönen, who could only manage 7th place. The two men should therefore set off on a furious comeback on a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult.
