Williams Martini Racing’s Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley says the three points that the team collected in Japan was pretty much all the team could achieve.
“Quite honestly, with the car and the pace we had this weekend that was pretty much all we could have done as a team. We played a risky strategy in order to get ourselves in the points and we got three points in the end. The team can be reasonably proud.”
Smedley admits that the car was just not quick enough and was disappointed with the qualifying and the race.
“The overriding point is that the car just wasn’t quick enough and that has been the biggest disappointment of the weekend in both qualifying and the race. However, we’ve got four races left.”
Valtteri Bottas lost ninth place to his team-mate Felipe Massa after a slow pit stop, and Smedley says it was a shame for Bottas to lose out.
“It’s a shame for Valtteri because he had that ninth position in hand ahead of Felipe, and so we were keeping him out longer to give him better tyres towards the end of the race. Unfortunately, the stop was slower than our usual and he came out behind Felipe.”
It was reasonable weekend for the Williams with very little mistakes but the team have realised that they need more pace to compete with Sahara Force India. The final four races are a mixture of aerodynamic and power unit specialised tracks, Austin in two weeks could suit the Williams’ aero package.
