With Williams currently pointless after six races, the worst start in the
team’s history, deputy team principal Claire Williams was understandably
thrilled. “Valtteri did such a brilliant job,” she said. “I can’t tell you
how excited everyone is. It’s only P3 but it’s so exciting considering the
season we have had. It means a lot to everyone at Williams.”
Bottas, whose previous best in qualifying was 14th, is unlikely to feature for
long at the head of the race. With the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, the Red
Bull of Mark Webber and the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso the three cars behind
him, he will be doing well if he is still in the points by the midway stage
of the race. The Finn admitted he was hoping for another sprinkling of rain
to help mix things up.
McLaren’s Jenson Button will also have been performing his best rain dance
last night. Seven months after publicly questioning Hamilton’s decision to
ditch McLaren for Mercedes, Button must be eyeing his former team mate’s
progress green with envy.
Button starts 14th after being caught out in Q2 by a crash involving Ferrari’s
Felipe Massa, which induced a red flag. He later appeared to suggest that
McLaren’s delay in getting him back out after the restart cost him any
chance of reaching the top 10 shootout.
“The red flag at the end of Q2 affected me just as I was about to set a good
time,” Button explained. “Then, with only two minutes of the session
remaining, I didn’t get a run without traffic. As a result, I couldn’t get
my tyres up to temperature.
“The fact that some of the others managed to improve was frustrating, but
that’s racing; sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you get it wrong.
It’s a shame, because I think we had the pace to get into Q3 today.”
Button’s epic, four-hour victory here in 2011 – a race he recalled wistfully
earlier this week – seems a very long time ago. McLaren are already as good
as out of both championships this season and conceded this week that 2014
could prove even more of a struggle given they will be in the last year of
their engine partnership with Mercedes before switching to Honda power for
2015.
The Japanese manufacturer’s corporate slogan is The Power of Dreams, and those
are increasingly all Button appears to have of adding to his solitary world
championship.
All of which puts Hamilton’s problems into perspective. The 2008 world
champion mumbled his way through yesterday’s press conference after
overcooking the final chicane in slippery conditions at the end of Q3,
although he did get a bit more expansive later on in the team’s official
press release.
“It’s good to be up on the front row again but I am a little disappointed in
my final lap,” Hamilton said. “I was seven tenths up going into the last
corner and unfortunately I went straight on. I would have lost time there as
it was so wet but there was a chance of pole if the lap had come together.
“Tomorrow should be a good opportunity for us though. The car felt great
yesterday in the dry so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the rain stays
away for the race and hopefully we can give Seb a run for his money.
“We’ve got a good car and I feel like I’m on it here so let’s see what we can
do.”