Williams ’going to have a scrap’ with Ferrari

Williams chief test and support engineer Rod Nelson says Williams is “going to have a scrap” with Ferrari at the start of this season.

Valtteri Bottas set the pace on the final day of pre-season testing, heading Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari SF15-T by 0.4s. With both teams having been closely matched over long runs, Nelson says Vettel’s time was not completely representative of the car’s full potential and he expects to be battling closely with Ferrari.

“Vettel didn’t get his supersofts in, I think he pushed too hard at the start of the lap and lunched them by the time he got halfway round,” Nelson said. “So I expect Ferrari to be a little bit closer than maybe they looked [on the final day] but you’ve seen that on previous days as well. We’re going to have a scrap with them, at least at the start of the season.”

And Nelson is confident that the battle will be over the podium positions behind the two Mercedes cars.

“I’d like to think we’d be in the hunt. [The win] is what you aim for every time, whether you’re at the back of the grid or the front of the grid. We’ve had a very good test - a very good winter testing world championship - and I’m pretty pleased with where we are with the car and with the drivers and with the team. So it’s been very successful.”

The final day of testing as it happened