Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Williams prepared to take risks to beat Raikkonen

Valtteri Bottas says Williams is willing to take some risks in pursuit of a podium in the Canadian Grand Prix.

While team-mate Felipe Massa struggled with a power issue, Bottas maximised the potential of the Williams to qualify fourth alongside Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. With Sebastian Vettel also starting from the back of the grid, Bottas is expecting a straight fight with his fellow Finn and believes Williams can be more adventurous with its strategy to try and beat Ferrari.

“I would think that if we see there’s no big threat from behind then we are ready to take some risks and maybe try something different if it’s possible," Bottas said. "So for sure we need to be clever to take all the points available but if we see there’s nothing massive behind then I’m sure as a team we are really hungry for better results than what we have had so far this season.”

And Bottas says he can foresee a situation where Williams is able to gamble because he believes Lotus will not be a danger over a race distance.

“Yeah a little bit [surprised]. They were strong on Friday but they’ve been the same on many Fridays before. Surprisingly quick, but we still do expect them to drop a bit in the race. I think their race pace normally hasn’t been as good as the quali pace so hopefully they will not be a threat and hopefully we can just focus forward.”

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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.