Valtteri Bottas concedes Williams can only be fourth-best team in Mexico
Valtteri Bottas is resigned to Williams fighting with Force India in Mexico, despite the Finn finishing on the podium for the Grove team last year.
Bottas concedes that the top three teams have a clear advantage, and that it is unlikely to change in the remaining races.
“I think the fact is that just Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull are that clear step ahead of us,” he admitted. “And no matter which track we go to they seem to now have a gap. For us not having any updates on the car, I would guess it’s again going to be for us fighting Force India. After the unlucky weekend in the USA, we really need a good finish with both cars and get some good points.
“It’s a very unique track in terms of downforce levels, etc. We’ll have to find out. Obviously it’s not brand new tarmac, so we’ll see how that’s going to behave with different compounds. I think that’s going to be the key anyway for us, to try and get everything out of the tires for one lap and in the race.”
Bottas admitted that it’s hard to made any predictions based on last year’s form.
“It’s been difficult now the whole second half of the season to predict, even though we were going to places that were good for us [last year], it’s been not the case any more sometimes.”
Regarding the ongoing fight with Force India, he added: “Last weekend we did manage to catch them, but only two points, and there was so much more possible. But that’s racing, and you don’t always get the luck. The main thing is we need to finish with both cars, every single race, and hopefully be faster than them. That’s how it goes.”
