Williams left disappointed

(Williams Martini Racing Team)

The Williams Martini Racing Team went into this afternoon's qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa Francorchamps circuit off the back of a strong final practice session which saw Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time in dry conditions.

However in the wet qualifying session the team struggled as Valtteri Bottas will line up in 6th place just behind Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo while Felipe Massa will start the race 9th on the grid behind his former Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen. Speaking following the session Bottas commented:

'The final practice where I finished P1 showed that we have a very strong car in the dry, but wet conditions allow other cars to move closer to us and unfortunately we didn’t qualify as high today as we can. I lost some tyre temperature in my warm up lap because of traffic which is crucial for us and this made my final run trickier than the ones before, and throughout qualifying we were losing time in the second sector. Our wet pace has improved a lot though since the beginning of the season and P6 is still a good grid slot. We can still do a lot tomorrow and if it is a dry race then we stand a good chance of challenging Ferrari and Red Bull.  '

Felipe Massa won the race here in 2008 while driving for Ferrari. The Brazilian said:

'The rain was very tricky today and prevented us from showing our true pace. Our pace looked solid in Q1 and Q2, but I had traffic in Q3 on my warm up lap and because of that I was not able to warm my tyres up properly which stopped me getting the full performance out of the car on my flying lap. Even though the track was drying and getting quicker in Q3, I was slower than my Q2 time so that shows that I could have gone faster if my lap had come together. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we can show the pace we have and move up the field.'

Although the qualifying session today was wet the race tomorrow is expected to be run in dry conditions which will suit the Williams FW36 so it can be expected that the team will be up front during the race as their car is faster then those around them.

Heading into this race the team felt that in Spa Francorchamps and next time out at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza in two weeks time is their best opportunity to take a win. Speaking following today's on track action Williams Martini Racing's Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley said:

'These sort of variable wet conditions are always very tricky and can catch people out. We played it sensibly and managed to get both cars through into the top 10 which is positive and we need to be satisfied with that, with Valtteri only three tenths adrift of third position. We saw on Friday that we have strong long run pace in dry conditions and we expect a largely dry race, so we are confident that both drivers can make up places tomorrow and secure some good points. '

The times in qualifying today were set using the intermediate tyre and as a result of this should the race be dry the team's in the top ten are not tied to the tyre's they did their fastest lap. Bottas set the fastest lap of this morning's session on a set of the Soft compound tyre so that bodes well for the Grove based team when it comes to tomorrow's race.

© Ben Johnston 2014