Valtteri Bottas believes Williams is “not that far away” from championship leaders Mercedes and expects to fight “closer to the front” during this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
After securing its first 2015 podium in Canada two weeks ago – courtesy of the Finn –, the Grove-based outfit is bringing several updates to Spielberg in an effort to further cut the gap to its rivals ahead.
Williams also holds special memories from last year’s trip to the Red Bull Ring, as the British team locked out the front row of the grid 12 months ago. While Bottas admits Mercedes remains the current benchmark, he refuses to rule out another Austrian surprise.
“You never know, I think we’re not that far away here,” he replied when asked whether Williams could repeat its 2014 performance.
“In qualifying, it’s still a little bit of a question mark to see whether we can be up there. Free practice shows race pace is not too bad. But I don’t know how much [Mercedes] still have up their sleeves.”
Sir Frank Williams' squad got off to its usual quiet start on Friday at Zeltweg, with Bottas and team-mate Felipe Massa finishing respectively 14th and 15th in the afternoon session.
But the former GP3 Series champions remains confident there is more to come from the evolution Williams has brought to its Mercedes-powered FW37.
“For us the main thing today was to try the new components that we have on the car; all the new aerodynamic parts seem to work more or less as we expected.
“The final option run with low fuel was slightly disturbed with some problems that we’re still investigating. It was pretty good with the primes as well during FP1. The long run seems to be quite good even though I had a lot of traffic. Still the pace was not too bad.
“I’m feeling good for the weekend. With the new bits on the car, we’ve gaining more downforce. It feels better and better, so we’re getting more and more comfortable with the car.”
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