- German GP - FP2
Bottas struggles to find balance in FP2
Valtteri Bottas admits he did not get as much from his Williams as he should have in FP2 as he struggled to find a balance to his liking.
Bottas watched the morning's session from the garage as Susie Wolff took over practice duties but was back in for FP2, where he finished 10th, three tenths off team-mate Felipe Massa. After missing FP1, Bottas says he was left trying to find an optimum set-up in the afternoon session.
"From my side there are still places I could have done better and also I wasn't really happy with the balance in some of those corners," Bottas said. "I think there's both - we need to make improvements to the car but I need to improve myself as well. We made mechanical changes to the car set-up - mechanically the car didn't feel good, I wasn't happy with the balance.
"We made some changes and I think we improved it, but we still have work to do with the car. We are struggling quite a bit with oversteer and also in the long run for the rear tyre wear I think we need to do something, it's going to be quite critical here if it is going to be dry in the race. Also this track is very different to many others, different kind of corners with a lot of banking. The second corner in the stadium, for example, it is quite tricky to get the balance right there."
The super-soft tyres were really struggling in the searing heat on Friday and Bottas knows this means he cannot afford to dwell on the car balance tomorrow.
"It always takes time. This track, with these tyres and this temperature, when it's only the one lap you need to get it's quite difficult to get it immediately. It took a few laps but I'm sure tomorrow should be quite a lot better."
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