Valtteri Bottas says Williams can fight Ferrari in Sunday's Italian Grand Prix despite being unable to match the leading two teams in qualifying.
Lewis Hamilton took pole position ahead of the two Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Nico Rosberg in fourth was just 0.3s adrift of his team-mate but nearly a quarter of a second ahead of Felipe Massa as Williams was just unable to bridge the gap.
Asked if Williams can challenge Ferrari in race trim, Bottas replied: "At least what we saw on Friday, I think we can.
"It’s so difficult always to predict how much more they have but what we think now, is that we should be able to fight with them. That would be nice and would make a really interesting race tomorrow."
However, Bottas conceded he had hoped to be able to get ahead of one of the Ferraris or Rosberg during qualifying based on the progress shown on Saturday.
"I was expecting more today definitely. In practice three we looked quite competent and we thought we could challenge Ferrari as well in qualifying but they made a bit of a step. They had a bit more in their back pocket for qualifying but it was not really possible to beat Ferrari with our car today and obviously Mercedes was very quick as always.
"As a team 5th and 6th was the maximum today and for sure, I would have preferred it to be the other way between Felipe and me. He had a good lap today and I think I didn’t have the perfect tow, not the perfect first sector but he did well today and my qualifying was not perfect today."
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