Between the lines at the Japanese Grand Prix

The F1’s official FIA Press Conferences are the traditional home of ‘for sure’, ‘the team’s done an amazing job’ and ‘we’re investigating that’, but what lies behind the platitudes? F1i reckons it has the answer…

Thursday 24 September 2015 – Drivers’ Press Conference Japan

Valtteri Bottas

The Question: Williams are currently third in the Constructors’ Championship, 112 points behind Ferrari and 59 points ahead of Red Bull. With six races of the season left are you, as a team, moving into a testing period for the last six races, with an eye to next year?

What Valtteri said:

For sure we’ve been developing next year’s car already for a long time and we have already done some tests looking more at the future rather than maybe only this season. Yeah, that is one of the targets for the rest of the year, to look ahead to next year but still we want to have good races and if we can find anything for this year’s car for sure we will try to do it if it doesn’t impact the development of the new car. 

What he might have meant to say: 

Yes, we have been assiduously developing next year’s cars and every race we are busy evaluating the latest upgrades coming from the boffins at Grove… ah, who are we kidding here, we’ve totally sacked the rest of this season off and most of the time when I’m sitting in the car in the garage looking intently at those screens, it’s cos I’m trying to figure out who is frightening all the guests away from the haunted theme park in Scooby-Doo.