The British Grand Prix was certainly the best race of the 2015 season so far. From the outset, the race was wide open at both ends of the spectrum. Endless battles occurred all across the field, meaning that the winner, podium places and points positions, let alone the other battles between the backmarkers, were not clear until very near the end.
Once the grid had lined up for the start and the race began, surprisingly, both Mercedes bogged down at the start. This poor start allowed the Williams cars, both of whom made excellent starts, to overtake the Silver Arrows into turn one. As well as the poor Mercedes start, what was so surprising was not only that the Williams could run with Mercedes in the first phase of the race, but they were able even to get away from them.
During the first phase Valtteri Bottas appeared to have the measure of his veteran team-mate Felipe Massa and tried to pass him into Stowe on a few occasions. However, in an ominous decision by the team, Massa was told not to let Bottas through. This was in the hope that Massa himself would build the gap ahead of both Mercedes to give Williams half a chance of winning their first race since the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012. By doing this, they played chicken with Mercedes on pit stop strategy. Lewis blinked first on lap 20 and used the pace of his W06 with full force to achieve the undercut necessary to overtake both Williams after it had all played out.
Although both Williams drivers occupied the top two positions in the first phase of the race, neither made it onto the podium. Therefore, was the British Grand Prix a missed opportunity for Williams? It would be unfair to call it thus.
Despite their fantastic pace at the start of the race it was clear both Hamilton and Rosberg held station behind the Williams cars in preparation for the pit stops. Hamilton’s pace in clean air after his stop was evidence that even had Bottas been let past to build a lead, Lewis would have made it back very quickly. The rain that eventually made its way to the circuit meant that even if a Mercedes had not made it past in the round of pitstops, any hope of a Williams victory was lost.
Over the past few years, the Williams car hasn’t worked very well under wet conditions due to the nature of its design. That showed in the latter stages of the race when Danil Kyvat was closing in on Bottas. The fact that Bottas fell to fighting to stay in fifth position shows that serious work is needed in wet conditions, and that Williams are a long way off fighting Mercedes just yet.
Whilst it is clear that the Grove squad have a very solid car with them, as they did last year, they need to continue this strong development cycle if they want to overhaul Ferrari for second place in the constructors’ championship and then concentrate on catching up with Mercedes.
