Bottas still optimistic for Sunday despite poor FP2

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Williams' Valtteri Bottas said that he was still hopeful that Williams could have a good race this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas, despite a poor afternoon practice session on Friday which saw him unexpectedly outpaced by a Renault and a Sauber despite a strong showing in FP1.

"In the afternoon we only ran with the medium and supersoft tyres and with either compounds the feeling was not that good," he explained. "But with the soft tyres in the morning, it wasn’t that bad and the feeling was good, and so was the balance.

"In the morning, with the soft compound, it was the best it was all day, by far, but in the afternoon the in-corner balance was not quite together, some entry issues, some snap oversteer in mid-corner and then understeer so, yes, we have some work to do.

"We have find the tools to try and bring the tyres up to temperature quickly," he added. "I think today the tyre warm up we had was not enough, because I could do two consecutive laps, with similar lap times, with the supersofts, which is not how it should be.

"In the afternoon, as soon as we went out, we started to struggle with the balance of the car. It’s difficult to say much because the wind direction is going to change completely for tomorrow.

"It was tricky with the wind. The first sector was good with the headwind but there was quite a bit of gusty tailwind and it was a bit of a problem. But tomorrow it’s going to be different, the wind direction will change 180 degrees, so it will make a difference in terms of balance and how the car feels, so whatever we do with the set-up it will be tricky tomorrow."

The big concern for Williams is not losing too much ground in their battle over fourth place in the constructors championship with rivals Force india.

"Force India definitively seems very competitive here, it’s going to be a big challenge for us if we want to compete with them – that’s how it feels at the moment, but there’s still a long weekend to go."

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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.