Following another race fuelled with mistakes and disappointment for both drivers and team, Williams find themselves still without the podium they wanted after four races. Now, star driver Felipe Massa reckons that all chances of a Williams podium finish are gone.
The team find themselves gradually slipping back into the lower end of the midfield in the development race. With teams like Lotus having found two seconds in two months and with Toro Rosso lingering in the background not far off the pace either, Williams could find themselves where they were pacewise this year, as they were last year. With Sauber desperate to find pace as well, Williams must not slip too far behind Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and fellow privateer team Force India if they have any aspirations of finishing second in the constructor’s standings. Williams now find themselves behind all of those four teams after four races. The fact that McLaren have failed to score in the last two races should also raise alarm bells. So far lots of possible points have been wasted, with Massa being taken out in Australia, Bottas hitting the wall in Australia, failing to execute team orders correctly in Malaysia and rear tyre wear problems in Bahrain being major issues. Not to mention the very poor qualifying in the first two races of the year.
China saw a slight improvement in race pace and a massive improvement in wet qualifying. Both cars made the top 10 and were well into it this time around, and both cars ran with very strong race pace.
No. 19 Felipe Massa (BRA)
Q: P6
R: P15
Another electric start from Felipe Massa saw him nearly get taken out by his old teammate Fernando Alonso. Both drivers could have avoided contact but somehow neither was damaged too badly in that contact. Massa also qualified ahead of his teammate again, showing that there’s still plenty of life in the Brazilian yet. He was running very strongly until a major problem in the pits which cost him a whole minute; the team had managed to get the rear tyres mixed up. Following this, the race was just a test session for the Brazilian. He finished the race only ahead of the one remaining Sauber and the continuous scrap between Caterham and Marussia. Yet more points lost through no fault of his own. He will be hoping to kick start his season in Europe, especially at the Spanish Grand Prix, the scene of his most recent podium to date.
No. 77 Valtteri Bottas (FIN)
Q: P7
R: P7
It’s sevens all around for the impressive young Finn, seventh in qualifying, seventh in the race, and now seventh in the standings. He hasn’t necessarily put one over on his more experienced teammate this year but has shown some amazing speed. He was involved in contact with Nico Rosberg at the start which was avoidable and could have put both cars out at the start, but he was able to keep going. He wasn’t too far behind Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India, which is promising as the Force India has shown that it can be on the podium. Not to mention that he ran the whole race without telemetry which meant that the team did not have a clue as to what the car was doing. The TV graphic showed that the car had used absolutely no fuel whatsoever, so either the Finn is pretty darn good at conserving fuel or he managed to run his race without telemetry pretty well. However he needs to eliminate these rookie mistakes though, fair enough in his debut season but he won’t be let off as easily as his career progresses.
The next few weeks will be vital for Williams. They must develop the car at a rate of knots such that they keep McLaren behind as they have done recently, and must ensure that they keep Toro Rosso and Lotus firmly behind them. If they can catch up to Force India that would be fantastic, because a podium finish would certainly be possible should Ferrari and Red Bull slip up. I feel that Red Bull and Ferrari will pull away into their own epic scrap for second behind Mercedes, maybe first if they really catch up, but I feel it will be between the other three Mercedes-powered teams for fourth.
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