Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Williams needs more pace, better strategy - Bottas

Valtteri Bottas concedes Williams needs to look beyond strategy and improve the underlying pace of its car to be more competitive.

Williams opted to run the medium compound during a two-stop race in Bahrain on Sunday, with both drivers slipping back having been running in the top three at the end of the first lap. Felipe Massa eventually finished in eighth place and said "definitely our strategy didn't work" having been second at the end of lap one.

While Bottas was hampered by a drive through penalty he shared his team-mate's concerns over strategy, but says improving the car itself is a bigger priority.

"We had two new medium compound tyres for the race but we only used one," Bottas said. "I used a soft compound tyre for the last stint, one that had only been scrubbed, so it was effectively brand new.

"We need to review our [strategic] procedures, I think, but I don’t think that’s what cost us. I think the fundamental thing is that we need to find more pace from the car."

Bottas has scored a total of just six points from the opening two rounds having been stuck behind the one-stopping Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenberg's Force India for the majority of the first race in Australia.

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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.