Williams looking to a positive weekend in Montreal - Lowe

A week after celebrating its 40th anniversary and extraordinary heritage at Silverstone, it's back to present day business for Williams this weekend.

After six races, the Grove-based outfit is in the middle of the tight mid-field battle, just behind Force India and Toro Rosso in the Constructors' standings - and it can thank Felipe Massa for that as rookie Lance Stroll has yet to enjoy a top-ten finish.

Like many of his colleagues, Williams Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe is a big fan of the Montreal venue, not only for its unrivalled atmosphere but also for the fact that Williams' track record in Canada includes seven wins, although the last was achieved a long time ago, in 2001 with Ralf Schumacher.

• Stroll: 'I don't doubt my capabilities, but I need time'

"Montreal is a big favourite amongst the Formula One teams," says Lowe.

"The crowds are fantastic  and Montreal turns into a party city for the weekend with a real feeling of excitement in the air.

"And the race itself rarely disappoints, delivering a large number of historic battles over the years including the longest ever F1 race in history in 2011."

Regardless of its appealing ambiance and environment, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve still offers a big set of challenges.

"It has unique characteristics including long straights interspersed with various quite challenging slow corners and a few notoriously unforgiving walls.

"The long straights and slow corners generally drive us towards lower downforce levels on the cars, and make it one of the toughest circuits on the calendar for brakes.

"With the narrower temperature window of current generation tyres it is particularly hard to get them in the right condition, especially for qualifying."

Seasoned veteran Felipe Massa will consider the race just like any other, but for Lance Stroll the event will obviously be very special.

"This is Lance’s home race so it will be a very special weekend for him. We were encouraged by his performance in Monaco so he can build confidence from that and have a good race here.

"Of course Felipe has raced here many times before, and our car should go better at this type of circuit than we did in Monaco

"So we will do our very best to secure positive results this weekend and to put on a great show for our North American fans."

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