Williams continue points scoring run with another podium finish for Bottas

(Williams Martini Racing Team)

The Williams Martini Racing Team continued their fantastic run at today's Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa Francorchamps circuit as Valtteri Bottas scored both his and the Grove based outfit's fourth podium finish of the season finishing the race in third place after starting the race from 6th place on the grid. The result means that the team have now closed the gap to Ferrari who are third in the Constructors championship.

Speaking following the race Bottas commented:

'Our pace was solid today and a lot better than in qualifying, with some good battles with the Ferrari’s and Red Bull’s, and I think third was probably the right result. I was stuck behind slower cars at the beginning which made the first stint difficult, but I managed to make my way past cars when it was needed and that was important for my race. We came into this race aiming for a podium and it is very satisfying to achieve that after an up and down weekend with tricky weather and Felipe being very unlucky today with debris. '

Felipe Massa had another difficult race weekend in the second Williams and after qualifying for the race in 9th place the Brazilian was disappointed to end the race in 13th place. Massa is now just one point ahead of former Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen in the championship. Speaking following the race Massa said:

'Unfortunately at the beginning of the race I had some tyre debris stuck in the floor that came from Hamilton’s car and this made the car very slow, losing about two seconds per lap. This wasn’t removed until my second pitstop and after that I was nearly three seconds quicker and the fastest car on track, but at this point it was too late for me to really do anything. Obviously I’m very disappointed that something like this has hurt my race and I just hope that in Monza my luck will change and I am able to put the car in the sort of position it is capable of.'

Speaking following the race Williams Martini Racing Team's Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley commented by saying:

'Valtteri had a brilliant result today, putting in a really mature drive and passing cars when he needed to thanks to the impressive chassis and power unit package. The strategy worked perfectly for us as well; we stuck to our plan and this paid dividends. 

Felipe was incredibly unlucky, picking up a large amount of debris from Hamilton’s tyre that stayed under his car for 20 laps and probably cost him about 40 seconds in total with his compromised  pace and strategy. As we are continuing to do, we need to improve our operations. This has not been a straight forward weekend so to finish with a car on the podium is a decent result and we look forward to Monza.'

Heading to the Italian Grand Prix in Monza in two weeks time the Williams Martini Racing Team are currently just 10 point's behind Ferrari. The circuit should suit the characteristics of the Williams FW36 as the team have a great all round package which includes the Mercedes power unit.

© Ben Johnston 2014