Jenson Button impressed by Williams’ revival
Jenson Button spoke about the current level of the Williams team and said he was impressed by the performances shown by the FW36 entrusted to Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.
Last year, the Williams team finished in ninth place in the constructors’ championship. But this year, the Grove team has bounced back and has scored 135 points in the first eleven Grand Prix and is competing with Ferrari for 3rd place in the constructors’ standings. Button – who drove for the team in 2000 during his F1 debut – is impressed by the resurgence of Williams F1.
When asked by Autosport if he was surprised by the competitiveness of Williams, he acknowledged the good choices made by the team in 2013 and over the winter: « I think they have made a lot of efforts to be competitive this year. They have a lot of resources to build a good team of people, especially in the aerodynamic field. »
« They did an excellent job and I’m happy for Frank and Claire to see their competitiveness. They lost a lot of points this year due to incidents or simply because they didn’t have the right car, which is good for us, because otherwise they would be much further ahead, » estimates the McLaren driver, with the Woking team only 38 points behind its rival from Grove.
Their main goal will be to be consistent and to do good teamwork every race weekend, because they have the car to be very fast – it’s mainly a question of whether they can extract the maximum from it.
According to former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, who joined the Grove-based team during the winter off-season, the whole paddock has been surprised by Williams this year: “I think everyone is surprised to see that the car is very competitive, but the work done from this winter until now has also been very good. It has been great from everyone on the technical side and with the information we report to improve the car. We have really improved a lot.”
« There is still a lot to do, but I think everything is going very well in terms of development, and I hope we can do even more until the last race. It was certainly a bit much to think that we could finish in the top three of the championship, but we can, » the Brazilian driver aims.
