Smedley: Force India will be more disappointed than us

Editor

Williams’s Rob Smedley explained that the points gap between Force India and themselves could have been much bigger had it not been for Nico Hulkenberg’s crash at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Suffering a point-less Sunday, Valtteri Bottas retired his car on the 35th lap due to overheating while Felipe Massa finished P12, the same position he qualified in.

Interestingly, Smedley, Williams’ Head of Vehicle Performance, believes that Force India will be more disappointed than them as they missed a huge opportunity to gain some major points on the Constructors’ Championship table.

“I’ve congratulated them for getting four points and jumping back in front of us,” he revealed.

“They did a good job. They’ll be much more disappointed than us. This was a great track where they could have made inroads on us like we did on them at Monza.

“Having lost only four points to them and being one point behind in the championship, I think we’ve been reasonably lucky to be honest. If Nico had not had his unfortunate incident in the first 100 meters, it could have looked a lot worse.

“I think it will be fairly evenly-matched now, maybe a little bit in our favour going into the last race.

“To say that we are confident of outscoring them is perhaps a little bit bullish. We’re going to go to Malaysia and Japan with very even performance if not a little bit in our favour.

“Then USA should be somewhere that suits us. Mexico possibly a little bit back in their favour. Abu Dhabi is always a reasonable track for us… and Brazil will be a good track for us [as well].”