Strategy puts both Williams in the points

Williams is far from the form it displayed in recent seasons. This trend was confirmed at Suzuka, where the team was unable to get a single car into Q3. But being 11th and 12th allowed its drivers to choose their tire strategy. They both chose a different strategy, opting for a one-stop strategy.

However, things looked bad when the two drivers failed to get a very good start. At the end of the first lap, they were only in 13th and 14th, as Felipe Massa comments: « It was a difficult race. We had to fight from start to finish. We lost two places at the start for both cars, maybe because of the tires we had compared to the others. The pace at the beginning didn’t seem very promising. »

Nevertheless, they managed to secure 9th and 10th places at the finish when Romain Grosjean made his last pit stop. Nevertheless, Valtteri Bottas could only be disappointed at being overtaken by his teammate due to a slower tire change: « On my side, being the lead car during the first stint, I was hoping to have the best strategy of the two cars but that was not the case today. »

The Finn cannot regret not being able to compete higher in the standings due to a significantly underperforming car: « In summary, we need a faster car. I hope the rest of the tracks on the calendar will suit us better. We just didn’t have enough pure performance today. »

It will indeed be necessary to do much better in the next four races if the team wants to ultimately reclaim the fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship from Sahara Force India.