Williams bounce back with double points in Austria

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Up until race day, the Austrian Grand Prix weekend had definitely not gone according to plan for the Williams F1 team. A double points finish had certainly looked far out of reach.

Both Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll were eliminated in the first round of qualifying on Saturday. They lined up in 17th and 18th position on the grid at the Red Bull Ring - a venue where the team locked out the front row in 2014.

But when the lights went out, the opportunities presented themselves for both drivers. Massa gained seven places in the first lap, and went on to finish in ninth place. His rookie team mate followed his lead and spent most of the afternoon right behind, finishing in tenth.

"You cannot celebrate a ninth position," cautioned Massa. "But starting 17th it was a fantastic race for me.

"I’m so happy with my race. It’s good to have both cars in the points.

"I had a really good start, getting through the issues that were happening in corner one and overtaking cars," he said. "It was a fantastic first lap.

"The pace was great, compared to qualifying. That's something we need to work to understand so that we don’t repeat starting out of position like today."

Massa felt that he had the pace to improve his position still further. However, he came up against the back of Esteban Ocon's Force India in the closing laps.

"It was a bit disappointing not to be able to pass Ocon," he said. "I was just losing a lot of grip in the high-speed corners behind him. He had good speed on the straight so it was quite difficult."

Bottas clings on to take victory in the Austrian Grand Prix

Coming off his first podium position in Baku, Stroll was also pleased to have made something of himself in Spielberg this weekend.

"It goes to show anything can happen in a race and it is not over on a Saturday," he pointed out. "I am feeling very positive as I started 18th, finished 10th and picked up another point.

"It wasn't an easy race, although the start was good and we managed to gain some places. I knew after the start we were in a good position. It was just a matter of staying focussed, not making any mistakes and saving the brakes and tyres towards the end of the race.

"We just need to figure out what happened to us this weekend in qualifying and try to cure it for the next race. The next race is Silverstone, the home race for the team, so I am really looking forward to it."

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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.