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Williams will be much higher on Saturday - Bottas

Valtteri Bottas says Williams knows it will be "much higher" in the standings on Saturday following an uncompetitive Friday in Belgium.

Both Williams drivers were comfortably outside the top ten during FP2 for the Belgian Grand Prix as Mercedes topped the times with Red Bull leading the rest of the field. However, Bottas says a simple change to the power unit on Saturday will deliver a clear step forward for Williams.

"I think it was definitely better than Hungary for us," Bottas said. "We were renewing today our test plan, and here especially when you turn up the engine it makes a big difference so, we know we can be much higher in the timesheets tomorrow. But today we’re just really trying different rear wing levels and getting information from the tyres."

And Bottas says he fully expects to be able to challenge Ferrari and Red Bull for the podium this weekend.

"We’re still trying different things [with tyres] between every run and I’m sure we’ll get the best config in the car with the options. There’s more to come.

"I think we can be close to [Red Bull and Ferrari]. They are definitely looking strong but I think we can improve quite a lot for tomorrow."

Click here for a gallery of the biggest crashes at Spa-Francorchamps

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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.