Valtteri Bottas surprised Williams closed on Ferrari at Spanish GP

Valtteri Bottas has admitted he was surprised by Williams’ performance relative to their closest rivals in Spain given they only introduced a small number of updates.

Vindicating his reputation as one of the sport’s brightest talents, the Finn held off compatriot Kimi Raikkonen for fourth place in Barcelona last weekend and finished just 15 seconds behind podium-finisher Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a positive race because we were much closer to Ferrari than any other race so far. The updates we brought here were small but it appears we are doing the right thing,” said Bottas.

“We didn’t expect this race to be a particularly strong race for us but it shows that we are definitely doing the right things. In Canada and Austria we have updates to come and they should be bigger steps than we had here.”

They new development parts will be welcomed with open arms by Bottas. After extracting the maximum performance for his tweaked FW37 and resisting Raikkonen’s late charge with an impeccable defence, the Williams driver has accepted that his team are still behind Ferrari in the pecking order even with the ammunition of a Mercedes engine.

“They had a quicker car and the advantage  but on a track like this it is possible to keep a car behind. Now is a really good time to say thanks to Mercedes. It is clear we have a very powerful power unit and without that it would have been very difficult to keep Ferrari behind,” remarked Bottas.

“We are not too far away. The gap to Seb was smaller than any other race this season,. We have closed a bit but if we want to really challenge them we need more updates – but they are on the way.”