Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Podium proves Williams' credentials - Bottas

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Valtteri Bottas says his first podium of 2015 in proves Williams remains “a top team” and believes it could be the first of many this season.

Having qualified fourth for the Canadian Grand Prix, Bottas was keeping in touch with Kimi Raikkonen when the Ferrari made its first pit stop. With Raikkonen spinning on his out lap, Bottas was promoted to third and was never seriously challenged from that point onwards and he says the result is a timely boost to prove Williams' credentials.

“I’m really happy for us as a team, a really proud, proud member of the team," Bottas said. "This was really good teamwork all weekend. The mistake Kimi made allowed us to get one position and we also changed the plan with the strategy, which I though was really dynamic. Really good job from the team.

“We really needed this result. Like last year, it’s really close, the confidence. We know again that we’re a top team and we can fight for the podiums. I think from Austria, with the package we have coming there, from there onwards, we really hope we can repeat at least this kind of results.”

And Bottas believes he was capable of challenging Raikkonen for third even if his fellow Finn had not made his error.

"For sure it helped us and it was good that we weren’t very far away at any point in the beginning to Kimi, so we could always put a bit of pressure on them. And we also managed to change the strategy halfway of the race. I think that was really dynamic from the team.

"The team did really good work today with the strategy and just being aware of all the things what was happening around us and in front. Really pleased that we finally got a good result. I’m sure it’s a big boost for the whole team."

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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.