Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Bottas keen to improve qualifying pace

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Valtteri Bottas says Williams needs to focus on improving its qualifying pace ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

Pre-season testing marked Williams out as one of the teams in contention for podium finishes behind Mercedes, with the team enjoying a strong winter after its impressive 2014 season. While the car looks competitive over a long run, Bottas was comfortably slower than both Mercedes and Ferrari on the soft tyre in Melbourne and he says the one lap pace needs to be improved.

“I think we managed to go through the plan and the car felt pretty good straight out of the box, only small adjustments during the session,” Bottas said. “Just getting information about the tyres, we did some long runs at the end of practice two and that felt quite consistent.

“But I think the main thing for us to look at for tomorrow is still one lap performance, I think there is more that we can get out of the tyres so that will be the main thing.

“I think we can still get more out of the tyres. We couldn’t maximise the one lap pace with the option, so I’m sure there’s more in to it so we just need to work on that.”

With Williams going until the eighth round of the season before scoring a podium in 2014, Bottas says the team is better prepared to secure a strong result earlier this year.

“We are much stronger as a team now and I think we can get everything what we have in terms of pace of the car. I think we can now maximise it, I’m confident we are strong and the car felt good today so I think we can have a strong weekend.”

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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.