With rain on the way, it is safe to say that Williams were not massively optimistic heading into the Japanese Grand Prix, due to their issues in the downforce department. Rob Smedley had claimed that these problems were fixed, but as we saw on Sunday, they are still a long way off Mercedes and Red Bull and possibly even McLaren and Ferrari in that area. Despite this, Williams left with a decent haul of points whilst Ferrari left empty handed on a really dark day for Formula One.
Williams Japanese GP Review
No. 19 Felipe Massa (BRA)
Grid: P4
Race: P7
It was a solid if unspectacular race for Massa. He was complaining over the radio about the conditions and clearly found it very tough on race day. Despite this, he was able to hang onto a decent haul of points having finished seventh. Except for being passed by both Red Bulls, Jenson Button and Nico Hulkenberg (the latter pitting at the end), it was a very lonely race for the Brazilian, who rarely looked like troubling his team mate.
No. 77 Valtteri Bottas (FIN)
Grid: P3
Race: P6
Bottas wasn’t miles away from the Mercedes in qualifying, but the car was clearly quite difficult to drive in those tricky conditions. He had a race which was almost identical to his team mate, and brought the car home in a handy sixth position, which he thought was the maximum that the car was capable of achieving. He will be looking to get back onto the podium before the end of the season. With that result, Bottas is now no longer able to win the title, but is now just three points behind Fernando Alonso. Beating him would be an excellent achievement in just his second F1 season.
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