ESPNF1:
Rob Smedley says Williams will focus on the fact it was "clearly faster" than Ferrari at the British Grand Prix rather than the fact the team missed out on a podium.
Despite leading one-two in the opening stages of the race a combination of questionable strategy calls and rain allowed Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to leapfrog the Williams drivers for the final spot on the podium. Ferrari had not been a factor in the dry, however, while Williams' pace had been on a par with Mercedes.
Speaking about the missed opportunity at Silverstone, Smedley said: "I think the weekend, on the whole, was really, really positive. We thought the car would be really good. All the upgrades and everything we've done with the car - the development - has worked really, really well."
Williams also out-qualified Ferrari at Silverstone and Smedley thinks the evidence from the dry running suggests the team has moved ahead of the Italian outfit in the pecking order.
"It's the first weekend I since the start of the season, even though we've been inching closer, where we've been clearly faster than what's our closest competitor - Ferrari. We were faster in qualifying, we had a similar pace advantage in the race and the dry. So I think the thing that we'll definitely take from that is it's been a really positive weekend.
"The final result hasn't worked out, for various reasons, but what is clear is that in the dry we were the second quickest car, and clearly the second quickest car. So that's was a really positive weekend for us."
Let's see about that in Hungary...
After the agony of defeat, success will be sweet!
- By bud