Valtteri Bottas admits Williams “expected more” from the FW37 after fighting for wins in 2014.
Following a dismal 2013 season, the British team bounced back to third in last year’s standings and was often Mercedes’ closest challenger in terms of raw pace. Thus, Williams entered the 2015 campaign as a dark horse threat to upset the defending champions.
But while the Grove-based squad has moved ahead of Red Bull, it has fallen back behind a resurgent Ferrari team and seen the gap to frontrunners Mercedes grow in the mean time.
“I do admit we expected more from this year's car, particularly in the first part of the season,” wrote Bottas in his latest Williams blog entry. “If you compare it with 2014, then we had a few more podiums at this time of the year than we have now [four against two].”
“Having said that we are still capable of improving and getting closer to Ferrari so I will be looking to secure more podiums in the second half of the season.
Having qualified a strong third behind the untouchable Mercedes duo last weekend at Spa, Bottas looked set to deliver on that promise but a slow getaway off the line and bizarre tyre mix-up eventually hampered the Finn’s progress in the Belgian Grand Prix.
While Williams came out and apologised to him after the race for costing him a shot at the top three, Bottas, who is turning 26 today, thinks he could not have stayed in podium contention on merit anyway.
“Of course a lot of work is going to go into understanding how the tyre mishap happened, because we need to fix the procedures and make sure such a problem never occurs again. We'll learn from it and I'm sure this will never be repeated.”
“Without the drive through penalty I had to serve for the tyre mistake we would have finished the race in 5th place, as I was in front of that pack. Still, the pace was not good enough for a top three finish, which was our goal, so now is a time to learn and move on.”
Click here for a lighter look at the Belgian Grand Prix, courtesy of F1i special contributor Eric Silbermann.
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