Williams “hopeful” it can fight with Ferrari in race

Williams think they could be quick enough to take the fight to Ferrari in today’s Belgian Grand Prix.

The Ferrari drivers will line up 13th and 14th for today’s race, one place ahead of top Williams qualifier George Russell. Williams’ head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said it came as a surprise to discover they were so close to last year’s winners at Spa.

“Certainly coming here we definitely didn’t expect to be fighting with Ferrari,” he said.

“It looked like they were struggling a bit [on Friday]. But even so, I think, we were a bit surprised.

“As for fighting them [in the race] I’m hopeful, actually. They didn’t look particularly special on high fuel on Friday. So hopefully we can stay with them and battle with them. I don’t think their end of straight speed is particularly brilliant either, a bit like ours. But we’ll definitely be trying.”

Despite some forecasts of rain during the race, Robson said the team has not made concessions towards a wet weather set-up.

“We’re pretty orthodox, to be honest,” he said. “Second-guessing or believing in the weather forecast I think has proven a little bit foolish around here in my experience. So we’ve been loath to put on too much downforce and find it was dry.

“Given how we did in the wet in Austria, the second race, we didn’t feel the need to do too much, to be honest. So we’ll see how it goes. The key thing will be I think if it is wet and it’s bound to be cold therefore how we get the tyres working. But we’re pretty conventional.”

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