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Bottas expects Williams will ‘improve massively’

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Valtteri Bottas expects Williams will “improve massively” throughout pre-season after noting a step forward with the FW37.

A problem found when putting the car together on Saturday prevented Williams from emerging at the start of the first day of testing, but once on track Bottas enjoyed reliable running throughout the rest of Sunday. After finishing fifth quickest, when asked if he could already feel that the car was an improvement on the 2014 chassis, Bottas replied: “It is, yes.

“This is only the first day and we will improve massively during testing always, and of course during the season as well, so I really feel it is a good base for the program. Experiencing the new car and making sure it is reliable. With that everything went really well.”

Explaining where Williams has made the biggest steps Bottas said it was with the aerodynamics of the car, particularly at high speed.

“I think we have improved with the aerodynamics. They are a bit more consistent through the corner, so that was a nice thing to feel because you get more trust in the car. The car was already good to drive last year but it feels like it is a bit better already.

“We still have lots to do to unlock more performance but we don’t need to do it here, we still have plenty of time and we need to find out everything we can about of the car, how it responds to set-up changes. We have plenty of aero tests and parts to try and all these things, so it’s going to be a busy few days but very important.”

Click here for the full gallery of the first day of testing at Jerez

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.