Jet-lag, gifts and how the Finn rates his 2015 also up for discussion
Thursday 24 September 2015 09:54, UK
Sky Sports News HQ's Rachel Brookes discusses Williams' chances of beating Ferrari in Japan with Valtteri Bottas and how he rates his 2015 performance.
Has it been tough to go from Singapore where we stayed on European time to Japan where we are eight hours ahead?
"Japan is normally a bit tough with the jetlag, but I left Singapore on Tuesday morning so I woke up Japanese time on Tuesday morning. I have had a few days already to get adjusted. The main thing is to be completely fit for Saturday and Sunday."
Did you go to Tokyo for a few days, like everyone else seemingly did?
"No I didn't, I've never been to Tokyo and I just didn't find it a good gap for that with my preparation. I prefer to take it steady and minimise the travelling and that usually allows me to be in good shape for the weekend."
How would you sum up Singapore? It was always going to be a difficult track for the team. Was it a case of making the best of a bad situation?
"It was going to be a difficult one, but we actually came out with quite good points with me. Felipe [Massa] was unlucky in the race, but fifth place was not a disaster for me. I think we made the most out of the opportunities we had in the race, the team did a really good job in the pit-stops and with the strategy. I am pretty pleased with fifth, obviously I want to be higher but you always need to be realistic with your targets and here the targets are definitely higher and I think it is possible to fight for much better positions."
Red Bull have made some improvements to their car, but they are not expected to translate on this track as it is much more power dominant. So for Williams, surely the goal is to be up there with Ferrari and Mercedes?
"Definitely."
Can you be ahead of Ferrari?
"I think we can be very close. We had some new bits for Singapore which improved the downforce of the car and that is also going to help here. I really hope we can challenge them. What is really important for us as a team is to be ahead of Red Bull - they are getting a little bit closer in the standings so we need to get to keep in front of them and try to get closer to Ferrari."
How do you judge your season? Is it beating your team-mate? Having more points than last year?
"I usually judge it on how I feel I have done in terms of my performance and also luck because sometimes there is bad luck and things you can't do anything about. I have to say I have been quite unlucky this year with a lot things happening that I just can't do a lot about - problems with the pit-stops like in Spa and then some brake problems like in Austria, a puncture in Budapest, everyone knows what happened at Silverstone. So I would say the last five races have been pretty badly and there has been a lot of disappointment for me and I am not happy with how the season has gone. There have also been races where I think I have managed to prove what I can do, but that has not been the case many times this season so I am looking forward to the end of the year with many good races and good opportunities."
There are a lot of fans here and they bring a lot of gifts. Have you been given any lucky charms yet?
"I haven't had anything special yet, so I am still waiting on the weirdest gift."
It is supposed to be dry on Sunday and we know the Williams hasn't gone well in the wet…
"That is good news, it looks like it might be dry Saturday and Sunday and possibly wet tomorrow in practice and I think the main thing for us in practice is to learn again. We had a lot of work to do in practice and if it is wet we still need to improve the wet performance. So we have a plan in place to try and be better in the future."
