Williams: points gap to Force India could’ve been worse

Rob Smedley admits Williams could have lost more ground to Force India in the Constructors’ championship at the Singapore Grand Prix, had Nico Hulkenberg not been taken out of the race at the start.

Having failed to score for the second time this year after Silverstone, the Grove-base outfit saw its rivals move back ahead in fourth place, as Sergio Perez claimed P8 in Formula One’s night race.

However, Smedley thinks Force India will be more frustrated by the eventual results than Williams, given the fact that it had the upper hand pace-wise at Marina Bay Circuit.

“I’ve congratulated them for getting four points and jumping back in front of us.” the Williams performance chief said. “They did a good job. They’ll be much more disappointed than us. This was a great track where they could have made inroads on us like we did on them at Monza.

“Having lost only four points to them and being one point behind in the championship, I think we’ve been reasonably lucky to be honest. If Nico had not had his unfortunate incident in the first 100 meters, it could have looked a lot worse.”

While optimistic that the remaining six venues will play to the strengths of the FW38, Smedley predicts a close battle between Force India and Williams until the end of the season.

“I think it will be fairly evenly-matched now, maybe a little bit in our favour going into the last race.

“To say that we are confident of outscoring them is perhaps a little bit bullish. We’re going to go to Malaysia and Japan with very even performance if not a little bit in our favour.

“Then USA should be somewhere that suits us. Mexico possibly a little bit back in their favour. Abu Dhabi is always a reasonable track for us… and Brazil will be a good track for us [as well].”

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Breakfast with ... Bernd Maylander