Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Bottas holds outside hope of first win

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Valtteri Bottas says Williams' improvements so far this season leave him with an outside hope of winning his first grand prix this year.

Williams started the season as the third quickest team behind Mercedes and Ferrari and has been closing the gap in recent races, culminating in back-to-back podiums behind Mercedes one-twos in Canada and Austria. Ahead of the British Grand Prix - where Bottas finished second last year - the Finn says Williams can increase its chances of victory if it continues with its current rate of improvement.

"I think one fact, these tracks suit our car better than some of the others in the beginning season but we’re also going forward all the time like last year," Bottas said. "If we keep improving, we can finish the season strong. Winning is always difficult but never impossible."

And Bottas is hopeful of seeing the upward trend continue at the British Grand Prix having been encouraged by some new parts Williams introduced at the last race.

"I think Silverstone we can be quite strong, we had some good updates [in Austria] which created more downforce, and Silverstone is where you need it, I really think it could help us there. We also had a strong race there last year."

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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.