Williams still believe in points finish

t has been somewhat of a disappointing weekend so far for Williams, the car just hasn’t been in the zone which has dropped them down the order. Red Bull and Toro Rosso have taken over the mantle of the third, maybe even the second fastest time if everything falls together, with Williams being demoted to well outside the top ten.

Both the cars failed to make the final part of qualifying, on a track that hasn’t really suited the strengths of the Williams car, with Massa 14th and Bottas 17th, both being elevated a place by the penalty for Carlos Sainz, and Massa jumping another place thanks to the gearbox penalty for Romain Grosjean.

Leading the Williams assault from 12th on the grid, Massa said, “There were no major issues during qualifying that caused us to be out of position; Monaco just isn’t a circuit that suits the characteristics of our car. We struggled throughout the day and found it hard to set the lap times we wanted.

“Tomorrow won’t be easy, but anything is possible due to the nature of the track. It’s not a great result as we have become used to qualifying higher, but I’m confident we can still get points and that must be our focus.”

Valtteri Bottas bemoaned the tyres where he lacked the grip to compete, but still thinks points are possible this weekend – most probably from doing a different strategy to others.

“I had some traffic on my initial option run and couldn’t go at the sort of pace needed to keep the tyre temperatures correct, and on my timed lap I just lacked overall grip throughout the lap,.” he said after qualifying.

“We knew this track was not going to suit our car and we’ve been struggling to get the tyres to work throughout the weekend. Then again this is the sort of track where lots of things can happen and if we stay out of trouble and finish the race then points are still possible.”

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