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Williams needs 'a triple improvement' - Massa

Felipe Massa says Williams has to improve three times as much as last season to be able to fight at the front in 2016.

Williams went in to 2015 with high hopes having finished third in the constructors' championship the year before, but didn't make noticeable progress compared to Mercedes and was leapfrogged by Ferrari in terms of pace. While Massa believes there were steps forward made, he says the team's similar level of competitiveness this year shows how hard a task it is to catch the teams ahead.

“We are fighting with the big teams," Massa told F1i. "We are fighting with teams that are bigger, they have a lot more money than what we have. We know that to beat these teams we need to do like a triple improvement from one year to the other and that is what we are trying to do.

“It is really difficult to understand 100% where we are going to be compared to the other teams next year but the only thing I can say is that the team is pushing very hard and working on points where we believe are areas we can improve.”

Asked if it is realistic for Williams to believe it can beat Mercedes under the current regulations, Massa replied: “I think it’s very difficult.

"For sure we want to be in the front but we know especially Mercedes are very far away so it’s difficult to answer where we are going to be but I hope we are going to be better than this year.”

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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.