Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Williams duo targeting pole again

Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas says Williams is targeting pole position again at the Austrian Grand Prix.

During a dominant season for Mercedes last year, Williams was the only other team to take a pole position when Massa headed a one-two in Austria. Having seen Ferrari start 2015 as Mercedes' closest challenger, Williams has been steadily closing the gap to the front two and Bottas beat Kimi Raikkonen to third place in Canada a fortnight ago.

With the team having secured its first podium of the year a race earlier this season, when asked if he can repeat his pole position from 2014, Massa replied: "I think you can never say never.

"We know it’s very difficult because Mercedes is the quickest car by a good margin in every race. But they were last year as well. Maybe the difference was a bit smaller, especially in qualifying compared to the other teams.

"But we will try. We need to think about it every race, trying to do the best we can. We always fight for first position in qualifying, but also in the race and we need to try again. We know that Mercedes is very strong but we will try.

"I hope it can be possible and we can manage to start on pole once or more this year. Nobody managed to do it last year except for me once, so we know it’s very difficult but we need to try, not just in qualifying but also during the race because that’s when it counts.

"I think it can be a good track for us and I hope everything that we have new in the car works and gives us an extra bit of help."

Team-mate Bottas agrees Williams can still target putting pressure on Mercedes as the weekend progresses.

"We had a really strong weekend, the strongest weekend of last season," Bottas said. "Last year’s car suited this track really well, I think this year it should be the same thing. Obviously Mercedes is a little bit more ahead this season than last year, so being 1-2 in qualifying is trickier, but you never know.

"We have some updates on the car that we will try on Friday and then we will see how strong we are. From the last race and getting the first podium of the season motivates everyone, so we know we can again do a good result. It is looking good for the weekend."

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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.