Valtteri Bottas: “The tires worry me more than the start”

Already on Friday he had shown that he could do well Valtteri Bottas and confirmation arrived in qualifying on Saturday, with a third place which then became a front row, thanks to the relegation of Sebastian Vettel, penalized for replacing the gearbox. The Williams driver will thus start next to the Mercedes di Rosberg and in front of the Rossa Raikkonen.
A good start and even better tire management will be essential to give the Williams a top team performance, which the Grove team has so far lacked at the start of the 2016 season.

“Qualifying was excellent, I'm very satisfied with how the whole weekend went, it was very positive. We tried new parts on the car which gave excellent sensations. It's a good track for us and I'm sure we managed to make the most of today's qualifying. I'm satisfied but tomorrow is the day that really counts, so far my Sundays haven't gone great but I'm sure that tomorrow we will have good opportunities to have a good race", commented the driver of the Williams at the end of the day.

“I think today's result is the best we could have achieved – continued the Finn – and my lap in Q3 was very good. We are in a great position for tomorrow and we need to focus on turning a good qualifying into a good race performance. I really like this track and I usually do well here. Some of the fastest single-seaters will start behind us which will make the race difficult but the podium will be our goal."

Bottas, who will start from the front row, is not worried about the traffic lights going out, but rather about the optimal strategy to implement: “For us the key point is tire wear, not the start, although that is certainly important. Knowing my pace it will be complicated, for that to be the case Mercedes is Ferrari they are very fast, especially in racing configuration. It is difficult but still not impossible,” he concluded.