Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Bottas keen to jump Massa for upper hand

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Valtteri Bottas wants to get the better of team-mate Felipe Massa at the start of the British Grand Prix to ensure he isn't used to hold off Ferrari.

Massa impressed to qualify third ahead of Bottas and the two Ferrari drivers in fifth and sixth. Mercedes is again expected to have the advantage in terms of race pace, leaving Williams and Ferrari to battle it out for the final step on the podium.

Asked how pleased he is to beat Ferrari, Bottas replied: “Very pleased, actually.

"It wasn’t the best Friday for us, we knew that we would improve for Saturday but we actually had to find something. So that was good and I think nearly all of it was just down to getting the medium tyre to work over one lap. So as a team we did a good job adjusting the pressures and temperatures.

“The car felt good all qualifying really, it was just a shame I couldn't improve the time from Q2 to Q3 anymore. I was really consistent all the way through qualifying but just couldn’t squeeze any more out of the lap time. For sure the wind conditions were changing a bit lap by lap but I think Felipe in the end on his last run he had a really good lap. But as a team we are now in front of both Ferraris which is really good for tomorrow because now with the strategy we have the upper hand with both cars in front. So we just need to keep it that way in the first stint and it should be good.”

When it was put to Bottas he could be used to force Ferrari to do something different in terms of strategy, he replied: “Well we will see.

"Of course I hope I will get a good start and if you’re in front you get the priority in the strategy so that’s the plan anyway for me.”

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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.