They would have had 2nd/3rd if not for the rain, well they might have. Merc pitted early, it made Williams pit earlier than they wanted. Not convinced their tires wouldn't fall apart by the end, they don't have anything close to the tire life Mercedes do. No where do Williams match Mercedes except straight line speed. Mercedes were going to get in clear air at one time or another and when they did it was going to be no match, as every other time this situation happened last year.
In the rain they got what I expected really. Even if they pitted a lap earlier and lost less time to Vettel, the Williams sucks in the rain. Vettel didn't pull away from Massa but he was what 16 seconds behind Rosberg with zero chance of catching, had he been 5 seconds behind Bottas he would have been pushing harder. That williams is just awful in the wet with no downforce.
What I find hilarious with all this magical gap Bottas was supposed to pull out and how bad Williams did is, what driver would give up 1st place and track position to a team mate if they don't both have a very clear no.1/no.2 driver structure and/or are on the same strategy. I've literally never seen any team EVER ask someone in the lead on the same strategy without a Schumi/Rubens style relationship to give up the lead and frankly I think it's ******* absurd that anyone here thinks they should have told a driver IN THE LEAD to pull over. It's laughable that anyone is even suggesting it as a sensible thing for any team to tell any driver, again unless you've paid someone specifically to be a no.2 driver and always let the no.1 guy pass.
I can think of a small number of drivers in F1 history who would have let Bottas past in that situation.
Hamilton was praised(by most) for not letting Rosberg by in Hungary last year and that wasn't even for first place AND Rosberg was on a different strategy and had to stop again. Hamilton's argument which was right is that you lose a lot of time pulling over as is and he wasn't going to drop over a second back extra to let Rosberg catch up as well. Hamilton was at times barely a second behind Massa(Bottas sometimes within 0.2s and Hamilton 0.5 further back at a couple of points). Massa pulling out of a corner or down the straight could easily have sent Hamilton flying past him as well.
I think it's hilarious everyone is thinking it's totally fine that when Massa takes the genuine lead of a race for the first time this year he should just give it up to his team mate for a questionable advantage.
)* i was cheering on Lewis and clapping for him as well. I think i have warmed to him!
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