Williams

Felipe Massa has never viewed the Brazilian Grand Prix of 2008, the race which saw Lewis Hamilton claim the world championship at the last corner of the last lap of the season, as the day he lost the title.

Instead, the Brazilian cites that year's Singapore Grand Prix, the fourth-from-last race of 2008, as the day when the tide turned in Hamilton's favour.

That particular grand prix—the inaugural race in Singapore—was the stage of the infamous Crashgate scandal, which involved Nelson Piquet Jr., the Renault driver, deliberately crashing in to the wall to cause a safety car period and therefore presenting a race-winning opportunity for Fernando Alonso, his teammate.

That safety car period led to Massa, who had led from pole position, streaming into the pit lane for a fresh set of tyres and a top up of fuel—but a misunderstanding led to the Ferrari driver departing his pit box with the fuel hose still attached to his car, leaving him stranded at the end of the pit lane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sQkz0pnQYE

By the time his Ferrari mechanics had dragged the fuel hose from his car, Massa had dropped from first place to the last of the existing runners.

As recently as last October, Massa continued to air his grievances, telling Byron Young of the Mirror:

What happened in Singapore is unacceptable. It cannot happen. I lost the championship there. Unfortunate—but it is like that.

What happened there is like in football when you have a match where they pay the referee. It is the same.

We see so many matches in football that they pay the referee and the team that loses goes to the courts.

But in Formula One nothing happens.

Yet despite Massa's right to remain bitter over the dark arts used by the Renault team, one crucial aspect of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix is often overlooked.

When Massa, who soon after was forced to serve a drive-through penalty, rejoined the circuit hose-free, there were still 45 of the race's 61 laps—over two-thirds of the race distance—left to run.

The undamaged Ferrari trundling at the back was the very same car that had set a comfortable pole position less than 24 hours earlier.

It was an opportunity for Massa to put in a champion's drive, to put his anger to good use and prove why he deserved to join the immortals, to claim the world-championship point or two that would ultimately prove decisive at Interlagos little more than a month later.

But he lost heart. He lost belief. He lost confidence.

And he finished in 13th position, five places from the last points-paying position and as the second-last of those who made the chequered flag.

It was a similar, sharp loss of momentum—going from a massive high to a disappointing low—which marked Massa's fall from pole position, and the lead of the race for the first stint, to a distant fourth place at the end of the Austrian Grand Prix.

Indeed, fourth place at the Red Bull Ring is clearly a less costly result for Massa in isolation and in terms of his finishing position against the backdrop of the drivers' championship than in Singapore almost six years ago, but the conclusion taken from the 33-year-old's limp display is arguably more damning this time. 

Massa's outstanding record of converting eight of his 15 pole positions into victories prior to this weekend would have been a source of confidence as the Brazilian lined up for his first start from the very front of the grid since he last won in his hometown in 2008.

And although the pace of the No. 19 Williams—and that of Valtteri Bottas, Massa's teammate—was pleasantly surprising at the start of the race, what happened after the first round of stops was most concerning.

You could almost hear Massa's heart drop like a stone as he exited the pit lane on Lap 15 to meet the rear end of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes just slightly ahead on the long straight heading toward Turn 2.

Williams' strategic error in failing to respond immediately to the German's early stop had cost their driver dearly, and Massa seemed to be in a state of self pity by the time the second Mercedes of Hamilton dived down his inside under-braking for the second turn.

Contrast Massa's handling of the situation to the one which faced Bottas, who also emerged sandwiched between the Mercedes cars a lap later.

Bottas not only remembered to look in his rearview mirrors and defend from Hamilton at Turn 2 on his out lap, but he became an irritant for the duration of the second stint.

He held Hamilton behind with apparent ease while successfully applying pressure to Rosberg, forcing the German into running wide at Turn 1 on one occasion and even appearing to challenge for the lead before finally succumbing to Hamilton after the second round of stops.

By the time the field had been restored to a natural order after those second stops, Massa's period in the lead was a distant memory.

His younger peers were long gone, to the point where the Brazilian's focus in the closing stages was to resist the charge of Alonso, who, according to the official Formula One website, finished 1.2 seconds adrift of Massa, rather than to challenge Bottas, who finished almost 10 seconds up the road, for the final podium spot.

Among the reasons why Massa's pole position at the Red Bull Ring was so warmly received on Saturday was its human element.

This, after all, was a man who had suffered a life-threatening injury and a dramatic erosion of confidence in the six years since not only his last grand prix victory in 2008, but the last time he enjoyed driving a Formula One car.

And although that confidence and enjoyment has been restored with a move to Williams this season, his drab performance on race day in Austria after setting pole so convincingly means any upturn in results will be short-lived.  

They will be a mere diversion from the downward spiral than a sign of a resurgence.

When you're a young driver trying to make your name in Formula One, as Valtteri Bottas of Williams is, the one thing you crave for above all else is opportunity.

Some drivers, such as Jean-Eric Vergne, never get an opportunity.

They trundle around in a car with only an occasional chance of scoring points for a few years before slipping off the radar and being replaced by the next big thing, who more often than not goes on to trundle around in a car with only an occasional chance of scoring points for a few years.

Other drivers—like Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Kevin Magnussen—firmly grasp an opportunity with both hands.

They embody the gambles of major institutions and repay that faith within a matter of months, often in spectacular style.

And you have the remaining group of drivers who are presented with a number of opportunities over the course of their careers but never succeed in extracting the most from them.

They have the ability and the potential to win races and perhaps even championships, but due to a mixture of harsh luck and unforced errors, they end their careers cursing what might have been and what should have been.

Opportunities, like most things in Formula One, are decided by small margins.

They can emerge from the most trivial of circumstances, from fitting wet tyres only seconds before a torrential downpour hits the track to joining a midfield team at the exact moment they leap to the front of the grid.

No matter how they appear, there is one aspect that binds each and every single opportunity that appears over a grand prix season: they must all be maximised.

This weekend's Austrian Grand Prix is the eighth race weekend of the campaign—but Bottas has already allowed two golden opportunities to pass him by.

The latest, of course, came in Q3 at the Red Bull Ring when the Finnish driver was beaten to pole position by Felipe Massa, his Williams teammate.

Bottas had held a slender lead over the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg at the top of the timesheets after the first runs of the final segment of qualifying and was expected to either cling on to first place or be overwhelmed by the Silver Arrows of Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton as the clock ticked towards the end of the session.

However, Hamilton's spin at Turn 2 and Rosberg's failure to string together a lap, as he did in Monaco and Canada previously, opened the widest of doorways for Bottas to secure his first F1 pole position. 

Yet a lock-up at Turn 3 and a trip over the grass tarnished his final effort.

Was it over-excitement that led to Bottas running wide on the exit of Turn 6? Was it the daunting prospect of joining the elite drivers on the grid which made him collapse under pressure? Was he over-driving the Williams in a bid to cement pole position? Was it merely a loss of concentration?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8i1CoEKirw

Whatever the reason behind his off-track excursion, the opportunity was passed to Felipe Massa to take Williams' first pole position for more than two years.

The experienced driver made no mistake, with Bottas relegated not only from first to second on the grid, but from a driver outperforming his car to a driver performing within the level of his car, within a matter of seconds.

That a 33-year-old, whose career for the last six years has been on a downward spiral, should beat a 24-year-old—who should very soon be reaching the peak of his career and is regarded as a future world champion—reflects poorly on Bottas, even though the margin between the pair was, according to the official F1 website, barely a tenth of a second.

And although Bottas achieved his career-best grid position while completing the first all-Williams front row since 2003 according to the official F1 website, it could have been so much more.

The way that Bottas ultimately failed to receive the reward that his performance arguably deserved in Spielberg carried alarming similarities to how his Australian Grand Prix panned out at the very beginning of the season.

The Finnish driver had worked his way up to sixth within 10 laps after starting the race in 15th at Albert Park and, with the strength of the Mercedes power unit in his car, was set to pass the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg's Force India imminently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjb_tv94IcM

A brush with the wall at Turn 10, however, gave the Williams a puncture and forced Bottas to mount a recovery drive to finish sixth at the chequered flag (which became fifth following the disqualification of Daniel Ricciardo) on a day when his first podium finish would otherwise have been a certainty.

Shortly after climbing from his car in Melbourne, Bottas was quoted by Sky Sports' William Esler as stating:

I am quite mad at myself for the mistake.

I am not happy about that, but I guess I just need to learn from it and I am pretty sure I am not going to make that kind of mistake again.

Bottas did make that kind of mistake again. And he made it when it mattered most, when the pressure was on and when pole position was up for grabs.

Another opportunity has been squandered. You suspect he won't get many more this season.

Toward the end of the 2013 Formula One season, Pastor Maldonado decided he didn't want to drive for Williams anymore.

Many smiles appeared in the vicinity of Grove in Oxfordshire, but it wasn't all good news.

Maldonado's career is funded by the Venezuelan government, through state oil company PDVSA. Since Maldonado made his F1 debut in 2011, they had been paying Williams a massive amount—according to a leaked invoice reported on f1zone.net, at least £29 million per year—in sponsorship fees.

The money was dependant on Williams having a Venezuelan driver in the car. With Maldonado departing, PDVSA would be going as well—and taking their cash with them.

Williams were facing the possibility of a major financial problem.

But it turns out they've done extremely well from what could have been a very difficult situation.

PDVSA were Williams' only true major sponsor, whose presence on the car was so great it significantly affected the livery. Company logos adorned the sought-after rear wing, a prime spot on the engine cover and two key locations on the nose.

When they departed, that space was vacated and Williams could consider a real title sponsor, something they could not have realistically done before. They soon got one—Martini.

The drinks company is a full title sponsor and partner, and their colours have transformed the car into one of the best-looking on the grid. The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but it will go a long way to plugging the funding gap left by PDVSA.

And crucially, Williams do not have to employ a driver of Martini's choice.

This sort of requirement from a major sponsor is a huge millstone around any team's neck, and it must affect morale to know they have to keep a driver, regardless of how he performs.

There were positives for the team on the personnel side as well, as Felipe Massa replaced Maldonado.

The benefits of signing the Brazilian go beyond the most obvious—that he's simply a better racing driver than the quick but inconsistent Maldonado.

The Venezuelan wasn't always an easy character to work with. Valtteri Bottas hinted at this when speaking to Finnish broadcaster MTV3 (translation h/t grandprix247.com):

I believe this season is an opportunity for me to learn from a team guy a little bit more than last year. This year the team has a more experienced guy and he is quite different—a little more open and more willing to be more of a team player and to provide more information.

I think if you are sharing information in the team meetings and both trying to contribute to the team’s performance and providing the best possible feedback—it always helps, of course.

In addition to being a bit of a lone wolf, Maldonado famously accused the team of sabotaging his car in qualifying for the 2013 United States Grand Prix. He has been involed in numerous collisions since arriving in the sport and has on two occasions (Spa 2011 and Monaco 2012) lashed out at other drivers using his car as a weapon.

Massa will prove a much more pleasant presence within Williams.

There's also the matter of his technical input to consider. A veteran of nearly 200 races, he has been involved in the development of 12 cars since his debut in 2002.

His feedback on the FW36 will prove highly useful, and the less-experienced Bottas—the team's big long-term prospect—will learn far more from Massa than he ever would from Maldonado.

Furthermore, Massa being in the team undoubtedly contributed to their acquisition of at least two new sponsors. A multi-year deal with Brazilian oil giant Petrobras was announced on 14 February, with Banco do Brasil coming on board a week later.

Added to the Martini sponsorship, the Petrobras and Banco do Brasil deals should more than cover the lost PDVSA income.

From the outside it already looked like Williams had done very well from Maldonado's exit but last week it became apparent they'd really hit the jackpot.

Williams are listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange, so have to publish detailed financial statements. The report for 2013 (PDF) was issued on 1 May, and it contained the following paragraph:

During 2013 the Group received a non-recurring sponsorship receipt. As no further obligation exists in respect of this receipt, the Group has applied the requirements of FRS5 Substance of Transactions to the transaction. Revenue of £20 million is included within turnover and direct costs of £1 million are included within administrative expenses in respect of this arrangement.

In simple terms, this means a former sponsor had to pay that sum to Williams to get out of a contract.

The figure in the statement is £20 million but reliable sources including Autosport put the actual number received from PDVSA at £15 million. It's still a lot and was enough to give Williams a profit of £11,957,276.

This compares very favourably to a loss of £4,573,119 in 2012, and it is their best financial result since at least 2007.

So in summary, they lost Maldonado and PDVSA; in return they received Massa, Martini, Petrobras and Banco do Brasil. They also got a free £15 million for doing absolutely nothing.

And to top it off, Williams currently lie a respectable sixth in the constructors' championship with 36 points, having made their best start to a season since 2005.

Maldonado's new team, Lotus, are yet to score.

Things aren't perfect at Williams—the team exists to win and anything shy of victory is a disappointment.

But at least their short-term financial future is secure.

When Felipe Massa was at the peak of his powers between late 2006 and 2008, when he was a frequent race winner and title contender, there were three circuits where he was considered untouchable.

Like during Sebastian Vettel’s nine-race winning streak in the second half of the 2013 season, the Formula One community arrived in these paddocks already knowing which driver would be standing on the top step of the podium come Sunday afternoon.

They were rare examples of a driver, a car and a track in perfect harmony, made all the more spectacular by the fact that Massa was and never has been truly considered as one of the most talented competitors on a grid with Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen.  

These forces of nature took place at Istanbul Park, the scene of Massa’s debut victory, Interlagos, where he seemed to run solely on the spirit of Ayrton Senna, and Sakhir, the venue for this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

And after a Malaysian Grand Prix that saw Massa experience a bout of deja vu, with his Williams team telling him in no uncertain teams to move over for his “faster” teammate, a return to a place that once served him so well comes at an ideal time for the Brazilian.

The Bahrain Grand Prix, in fact, presents Massa with arguably his and Williams’ best chance of taking a victory in the 2014 season.

The wet qualifying sessions of Melbourne and Sepang, and the levelling effect that rain brings to F1, mean that a race weekend is yet to play out accordingly so far this campaign. Williams’ quite visible handling difficulties in damp conditions have left both Massa and Valtteri Bottas qualifying in the obscurity of the midfield despite the team being regarded as the closest rivals to the pace-setting Mercedes cars at the close of pre-season.

The dry conditions in the Bahrain desert, then, should finally see Williams flex their muscles for the first time this year at a track where Massa set the fastest time of anyone in testing barely more than a month ago.

Red Bull’s sudden, almost miraculous return to form after a disastrous final test in Bahrain suggests that it is a matter of time until the reigning world champions, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren utilise their superior resources and establish a more familiar pecking order, perhaps as soon as the fifth round of the season in Spain, the weekend that traditionally sees the introduction of major update packages.

This means that Williams, the privateer team with less money to play with in contrast to their more fashionable rivals, simply must capitalise on their early pace advantage if they are to secure a first grand prix victory for almost two years.   

And what better weekend for Massa to achieve his first win in over five years than the race which sees Rob Smedley, his race engineer for 135 races at Ferrari, officially begin work with Williams?

Massa’s excitement with Smedley’s arrival as head of vehicle performance was summed up when in the lead up to the race weekend he told Edd Straw of Autosport:

He's going to bring a lot of experience to the team and he's going to bring a lot of good ideas for race team organisation.

There's a lot going on in the team, a lot of improvements, a lot of things that are going in a good direction.

But there is still a lot to do and I am sure he will be an important key as well.

Among those “good ideas” that Massa believes Smedley will bring to Williams, you’d imagine, will be how to speak to drivers in a correct and honourable manner.

The contempt with which Massa was handled by his new race engineer, Andrew Murdoch, who used almost the exact same words that Smedley was forced into using in ushering his driver out of the way of Fernando Alonso at the now-infamous German Grand Prix of 2010, would have horrified the Brazilian’s partner in crime.

After all, the one aspect that made the relationship between Massa and Smedley so universally popular was their retention of a human element. In a sport which has increasingly seen drivers become the pawns of the prat perch that is an F1 pit wall, which is so reliant on the crunching of numbers and the analysing of data, their rapport has always provided the endearing impression of two friends taking on the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvKiUfXKuA

Sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but always maintaining a sense of perspective, always retaining enjoyment.

That sense of perspective was lost dramatically in Malaysia when Williams found themselves arguing over which driver would finish seventh. The height of this humiliation should not be underestimated at the beginning of a season which represented a fresh start for Williams, with new personnel, a new engine partner in Mercedes and, of course, a new title sponsor in Martini.

The renewed vibrancy and excitement was surely not expected to have dissipated by the second round of the season, but the Bahrain Grand Prix represents a great opportunity for the Williams master plan to regain some momentum.

And although Lewis Hamilton ended Friday’s free practice running over a second clear of the next non-Mercedes driver, if anyone is to take the fight to F1’s dominant team in the darkness of the desert this weekend, Massa might be the one to do it.

Williams' Felipe Massa was running in seventh place with a few laps to go of the 2014 Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix.

Having done an exceptionally good job of saving fuel, he was attempting to pass the McLaren of Jenson Button for sixth. Just behind and catching fast was Valtteri Bottas in the other Williams.

The team thought Bottas had a better chance of passing Button than Massa, so they asked the Brazilian to move over.

It's bad enough being asked to let a teammate by, but the language used can make it more or less bearable. Williams kept it nice and simple, and TV viewers around the world heard the team radio transmission loud and clear:

"Valtteri is faster than you."

If you had a quiet, slightly guilty chuckle as you heard those words, you're not alone. There's obvious comedy value in Massa's race engineer producing a near word-for-word repetition of the infamous "Fernando is faster than you" message which entered F1 folklore after the 2010 German Grand Prix.

But for those not inclined toward indulging in a spot of schadenfreude, it probably elicited a cringe.

And for Massa, it will have brought back memories of that victory he so famously gave away. Anger, resentment, humiliation, disappointment; pick any of those emotions, and he was probably feeling it.

But of course, that wasn't a one-off occurrence. Massa has a long history as a No. 2 driver and has spent most of his career in a position where, had he found himself ahead, he'd have be asked to let his teammate through.

Moving to Williams, he hoped he'd left all that behind.

So despite his race engineer repeating the message (in more tactful words), he ignored the team orders. Bottas, realising he wasn't going to be waved by, attacked—but Massa held him off and retained seventh.

After the race, Massa was unrepentant. He told James Galloway of Sky Sports F1:

We are fighting for the championship, we are in the second race. Definitely I tried the best I could and Valtteri couldn't pass me so it was going to be difficult to pass Jenson as well. So I don't think things would have been changed at the end.

I was there, I was fighting. It was not that we were on two completely [different] strategies. He was not in a different strategy to me, he stopped just after me and his tyre was slightly better, but not enough to pass me and not enough to pass Jenson as well. So what I did was the right thing.

Bottas, unsurprisingly, had a different view. When asked about what had happened, he told the same outlet:

I don't want to really comment [about] that. We should really speak in the team first what happened there and what messages they gave to Felipe.

I think there was a really good chance for me to get Jenson. I was approaching really quickly but, like I said, we need to speak with the team.

Should have been an interesting debrief at Williams, then.

There's a strong argument that F1 is a team sport, and that drivers should always do what is best for the team—even if it means sacrificing a few points here and there.

Bottas definitely had the faster car at that stage of the race. And after his impressive attacking displays in Australia two weeks ago, there is good reason to think he had a better chance of getting past Button than Massa, who had already tried and failed.

That would have been two more points for Williams, and two fewer for McLaren. At the end of the season, that four-point swing could be enough to put one team ahead of the other.

But Massa was right to ignore the team orders.

The two Williams drivers are not just fighting with the other teams. They're also involved in a very close internal battle to gain the upper hand.

If Massa had given the place away, Bottas would be even further ahead in the championship standings. But more importantly it would have set a precedent and, in all likelihood, knocked Massa's confidence through the floor.

We've seen enough over the years to know that the Brazilian's emotional state significantly impacts on his driving.

So any blow to his morale, especially this early in the season, could be disastrous for his future.

And what better way to shatter a driver's motivation—especially one who's had a career like Massa's—than to shunt him aside in only the second race of the year for the sake of two extra points?

Or rather, a chance of two extra points. Because there's no guarantee Bottas could have passed Button.

In ignoring the team orders, Massa has made it clear that he won't be pushed around as he was at Ferrari. He's also sent a message to Bottas: If you want to beat me, you'll have to do it yourself.

And that's exactly how it should be.

For the first time since the summer of 2013, there was no shortage of choices for Driver of the Day in the immediate aftermath of a Formula One race.

In truth, any number of drivers—Daniel Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen, Nico Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas and Daniil Kvyat—could have left the Australian Grand Prix with the unofficial award, proving how promising the sport’s talent pool remains despite the doom and gloom that surrounds the influx of “pay drivers”.

How refreshing it was, too, that we were treated to variety for once, rather than the standout driver performances being dominated by Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.  

The obvious picks in Melbourne, of course, were Ricciardo, the Red Bull driver whose popularity meant he retained his status as a national hero even after disqualification from an assured second place, and McLaren driver Magnussen, who thanks to Ricciardo’s misfortune became the most successful debutante since Jacques Villeneuve burst onto the scene at the very same venue in 1996.

And that’s before you mention the winner, Rosberg, whose victory was never in doubt from the moment he exited the first corner of the race as the leader. An honourable mention, too, must go to Kvyat, who at the age of 19 became the sport’s youngest-ever points-scorer in his first ever grand prix, taking the record from a fellow Red Bull young driver graduate.

If, however, you were to suggest to Bottas that he should be a contender for Driver of the Day, he would have laughed in your face.

In finishing sixth (which was eventually converted to fifth following Ricciardo’s exclusion), Bottas had single-handedly scored more points in a single race than his Williams team managed to record over the whole of last season. From a personal perspective, Bottas had recorded his best F1 finish after opening his account with an assured drive to eighth position in last November’s United States Grand Prix.

But those were not reasons for Bottas to raise a Martini in the Albert Park paddock. In his view, the Australian Grand Prix was a missed opportunity.

Bottas, after all, began the weekend hoping to be the closest challenger to the pace-setting Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. His visible struggles with the rear instability during the wet qualifying session and later five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, however, left him not at the front of the grid, where he should have been, but in the obscurity of the midfield that he grew to know as home for much of 2013.

His blistering start to the grand prix saw him run as high as sixth in the early stages before suffering a puncture after making contact with the wall on the exit of Turn 10 while sniffing around the rear of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari—the defining moment of his race and possibly his career so far.

Although Bottas recovered from 16th to sixth, executing several magnificent overtaking manoeuvres in the process and finishing within seven seconds of Alonso, the disappointment of his early mistake—which denied him an almost certain podium finish—overshadowed any satisfaction taken from a solid top-10 result.

The Finn made the point of apologising for his error on the slowing-down lap before telling Sky Sports F1:

I haven't really seen the result to know how far away they [the podium finishers] are, but I am quite mad at myself for the mistake.

I am not happy about that, but I guess I just need to learn from it and I am pretty sure I am not going to make that kind of mistake again. Apart from that the race was okay and we had good pace.

Bottas’ reaction to what was the first real mistake of his F1 career was highly impressive for a man competing in just his 20th race. This wasn't just mere disappointment; Bottas was morally offended and disgusted that he’d allowed himself to commit an error—the same error that the reigning world champion no less had made barely 24 hours earlier.

There were plenty of reasons for Bottas to celebrate, to reflect upon with satisfaction, but in focusing on the negatives, he displayed the two characteristics that every great F1 champion has possessed: self-awareness and a relentless desire for more:

His highly apologetic stance was a reflection of a man with a strong regard for team ethics. It's an important trait when you consider the amount of drivers that, in the past, used teams like Williams as little more than stepping stones to leading teams. Sergio Perez, who had a reputation for being arrogant in his Sauber days, the most recent example of a driver falling flat on his face after “winning” a move to a leading outfit.

Bottas’ mistake in Australia could later become to be known as the moment that the Finnish driver elevated himself to a whole new level of performance.

It is important that Bottas bottles his regret to ensure he never passes up an opportunity to score a strong result again. Like Ayrton Senna, who used the disappointment of his elementary crash at Monaco in 1988 as a lesson to inspire him to then go on a streak of six wins from the following eight races; or like Vettel, who recovered from the embarrassment of clumsily crashing into Jenson Button in the 2010 Belgian Grand Prix to then reach a level that saw him dominate for the next three years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRgYuv6kosI,1959

Call it not an eye-opener or a kick up the backside, but a reminder to be meticulous, to leave no stone unturned and to extract the most from any opportunity. And with Bottas adamant that he won’t make a mistake as silly as that again, you would be foolish to bet against him.

Although Rosberg, Ricciardo and Magnussen are perhaps more deserving of their Driver of the Day tags in Melbourne, you get the feeling that the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, for Bottas will, in the years to come, be remembered as the day that made the driver.     

Felipe Massa was quite excited about the Australian Grand Prix.

Finally free from an eight-year tenure at Ferrari, the dream job that eventually became something of a living hell, he was set to begin the first race of the rest of his career.

Like Williams, his new employers, Massa had undergone a resurgence over the winter months. The Brazilian had been perceived as damaged goods after four years of living in the shadow of Fernando Alonso, with his best days thought to be long gone.

But in pre-season, there seemed to be a renewed sense of fulfilment, confidence and enthusiasm—something chief technical officer Pat Symonds was at pains to point out while discussing Massa’s impact on Williams with AUTOSPORT.

With a multi-year contract in his pocket, a Mercedes engine, a handsome chassis and a sponsorship deal with Martini, there was an excitement, a belief, a vibrancy and—most significantly—an expectation that had not been associated with Massa since the beginning of 2009.

Having set the fastest time of anyone in the final test in Bahrain, Massa, despite a career littered with underwhelming performances in Melbourne, was considered a contender for victory in Australia. Sure, qualifying had not gone as planned—with the wet session perhaps hurting Williams more than any other team—but the dry conditions of race day presented an opportunity to come through the field and challenge the pace-setting Mercedes’.

Yet Massa’s fresh start was ruined before it had begun after Kamui Kobayashi’s Caterham ploughed into the rear of the Williams at the first corner, leaving both drivers stranded in the gravel trap.

The Brazilian’s frustration at his first-lap retirement was clear when Massa fumed to ESPN F1, stating:

Somebody hit me massively, and it was really a shame as everything was under control for the start. I was really careful going to the line very safely, but every time Kamui is trying to do a start like that he will do the same.

You cannot brake at 50 metres on a start like that. I don't see a difference between what happened to his start and what happened to (Romain) Grosjean when he did a crazy start at Spa (in 2012). I hope they give a hard penalty because you cannot do that.

Kobayashi—a driver not exactly immune from bouts of clumsiness and recklessness—immediately claimed the blame, issuing an apology to Massa and his team via Twitter within 30 minutes of the crash.

But the revelation that Kobayashi suffered what AUTOSPORT quoted an FIA steward’s report as referring to a “serious technical failure completely outside the control of the driver” soon saw that apology amended.

That serious technical failure was clarified by Sky Sports F1 television pundit Anthony Davidson, who claimed a KERS failure left the Japanese with no rear brakes as he approached Turn 1, providing a reminder of the complexity of the 2014 regulation changes.

Amid all the pre-race talk of the extra torque on acceleration and sideways action provided by the new 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 engines, the challenge of actually slowing the car down—something that several drivers, including Massa, had struggled with in pre-season—almost went under the radar.

The new brake-by-wire system, which effectively brakes the car on the driver’s behalf, is dependent on the engine and energy recovery systems working in perfect harmony. If a KERS failure occurred prior to 2014, a driver—as we so often saw, particularly with the tightly-packaged Red Bull’s of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber—would not be severely hindered over the course of a grand prix.

But now? With the system two times as powerful and so integral to the workings of the car—rather than just a fun push-to-help-you-pass button on the steering wheel—any KERS (or MGU-K to give it its funky new name) failure will result in fundamental problems in terms of handling, as we saw with Kobayashi, and fuel efficiency.

The impact of the incident between Massa and Kobayashi also provided fresh concerns regarding the safety of the new “anteater noses” which have caused much hilarity. That hilarity has been temporarily suspended, however, after the Caterham’s nose appeared to scoop the rear of the Williams off the ground upon impact.

The low noses were introduced to limit the chances of a car leaping into the air on impact to prevent a repeat of Mark Webber’s somersault over Heikki Kovalainen in the 2010 European Grand Prix as well as to protect drivers from injury in the event of T-bone accidents.

However, solving two problems has seemingly created another potentially more hazardous risk.

The warning signs were there since Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey, who as the man who designed the car which claimed the life of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in 1994 is passionate about driver safety, spoke of his dislike of the low noses on the first day of pre-season testing at Jerez.

Newey told The Telegraph at the time:

The regulation has been introduced following some research by the FIA which suggests that nose height reduces the chance of cars being launched. I must admit, I am concerned that the opposite may now happen; that cars now submarine effectively.

If you hit the back of a car square on then you go underneath and you end up with a rear crash structure in your face, which is a much worse scenario.

There have been some accidents where you think would a low nose possibly have made things much worse.

I guess it’s like all these things, it might help in some scenarios, it hurts in others. It’s one which I must admit; personally I’m not in favour of. For me it’s introduced possibly more dangers than it has cured.

Newey, who referenced Michael Schumacher’s horrific accident at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix—a crash that initiated the most recent wave of ideas to improve driver cockpit safety—whilst speaking to the media that day, will doubtlessly present the incident between Massa and Kobayashi as evidence when he next argues the 2014 nose designs could cause more harm than good.

Although Massa has, at the time of writing, failed to respond to Kobayashi’s apologetic tweets with a series of smiley-faced emoticons, he will almost certainly regret his call for the Caterham driver to be banned. The Australian Grand Prix, after all, was always set to be marred by teething troubles for the 2014-spec cars and it is increasingly clear that the crash was merely an unfortunate consequence of those.

How wonderful it was, however, that at the beginning of Formula One’s season of change—when Massa is no longer synonymous with the scarlet red of Ferrari but instead the crisp white of Williams Martini—Kobayashi, in causing chaos all around him, has shown that some things remain the same.

The Williams F1 team have revealed a tribute to Ayrton Senna on the front wing of their car for the 2014 season, marking 20 years since Senna died while racing at the San Marino Grand Prix.

We'll be running an updated 20th anniversary Senna logo on the nose of the FW36 this season. Here it is... pic.twitter.com/iqxLN2XMKw

— WILLIAMS RACING (@WilliamsRacing) March 7, 2014

Senna was best remembered for his three world titles with McLaren, but it was in a Williams that he suffered his fatal accident.

His loss was keenly felt across the sport and particularly with the team, who have always had the Senna Foundation charity tribute on their vehicles since the accident.

The BBC explain:

His image, on the left of the nose cone, will include the words "Ayrton Senna Sempre", Portuguese for "always".

"This new logo is our way of celebrating his achievements," said team principal Frank Williams.

Williams also have a completely new livery for this season, with drinks firm Martini becoming a key sponsor. 

Additionally, the team have taken on a Brazilian driver for the new campaign, with veteran Felipe Massa replacing Pastor Maldonado.

Indications in testing are that Williams, one of the longest-running and most successful companies in the history of the sport, may have produced a surprisingly competitive car after a season in the F1 wilderness.

Form is temporary, class is permanent.

It’s an old sporting adage that each of us has read and heard a million times—apart from, apparently, Pastor Maldonado.

When the Venezuelan was plotting his exit from Williams towards the end of last season, he was, in his view, escaping from the sinking ship.

2013, after all, was the second time in three seasons that Williams had failed to reach double figures in the constructors’ championship. If there was ever a statistic to confirm that the team’s glory days had come and gone—never to return—that was it.

That Maldonado had claimed Williams’ only victory in eight years, at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix, told him all he needed to know: I’m the star here. I’m wasted in this joint.

So, off he fled to Lotus, with two fingers pointed in the direction of Grove and the bizarre claim that the team had deliberately sabotaged his car at the United States Grand Prix. That’s the problem with those pay drivers, you see: Their wads of cash can lead them into a sense of security, allowing them to get away with whatever they want in the knowledge that—in the current economic climate—the team needs the driver more than the driver needs the team.

The mark of a great driver—in addition to blistering pace, handy race craft and, in the modern era, a healthy bank balance—is one’s ability to judge the competitive order, not only for the present, but also the short-to-medium-term future.

It is a skill that even the finest can get horribly wrong, with Ayrton Senna’s move to Williams at the beginning of 1994—at the exact moment when the team’s performance advantage was neutralised due to a ban on electronic driver aids—serving as perhaps the most high-profile example. But, it is almost as important a part of a driver’s repertoire to assess and predict the competitiveness of each team as it is to spot a potential overtaking opportunity on the track.

And there is a huge possibility that, despite the initial glee upon the confirmation of his move to Lotus in December, Maldonado has departed Williams at the worst time imaginable.

The trouble for Williams since the end of their last major winning spree came to an end in 2004 is that, because their form has been so dire for such an extended period of time, it was tempting to believe that their class had also regressed to that level. For much of the last decade, they have not been the legendary manufacturer that scooped title after title in the 1980s and 1990s, but merely a team seemingly content with making up the numbers.

Williams’ deal to use Mercedes power units from the 2014 season, a shrewd piece of business, was the first step towards the team’s resurrection. With the deal announced as long ago as May of last year, this is a factor which Maldonado should unquestionably have paid more attention to when assessing his 2014 options, given the long-standing speculation that Mercedes were to emerge as the major force—not only as a race team but as an engine supplier—for the season ahead.

The signing of Pat Symonds, a man whose reputation has remained impressively intact despite his involvement in the crash-gate scandal surrounding the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, as chief technical officer barely two months later has added world championship-winning know-how to a team that had all too often appeared to lack direction. No doubt, this led to the restructuring of Williams’ engineering department with the additions of Jakob Andreasen from Force India, Craig Wilson from Mercedes, Rod Nelson and Dave Wheater from Lotus, Shaun Whitehead from Red Bull and, of course, Rob Smedley from Ferrari in recent months.

The changes behind the scenes are set to be built upon with the exciting development that, as reported by Jonathan Noble of AUTOSPORT earlier this month, Williams are to announce a sponsorship deal with Martini ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. The aligning of two of the most iconic names in motorsport history will reinvent the identity of a team who have settled for placing driver number graphics on their car’s sidepods (normally a prime spot for sponsors) in recent years, returning glamour and attraction to the Williams brand.

Maldonado’s replacement, former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, is expected to thrive having finally removed the ‘doormat’ tattoo from his forehead and will drive with the freedom and flamboyancy that characterised his early years in the sport. Meanwhile, in Valtteri Bottas, the team has a mature, talented youngster—a potential world champion—who will be intent on reinforcing his credentials after an impressive debut season in 2013. In addition, Williams' decision to hand Susie Wolff, the team's development driver, the opportunity to drive in two free practice sessions in 2014 will see Williams considered as trend-setters in a period when the need for female involvement in sport is ever-growing.   

Suddenly, there seems to be an urgency, a desire and a belief within Williams that has not been visible for some time.

That belief was summarised by Symonds, whose pride in the team’s 2014 car, the FW36—the only car after nine days of pre-season testing not to cause a red flag stoppage—was evident when he was quoted by Sky Sports’ Phillip Porter as saying the machine is "running like a dream."

After the opening two tests in Jerez and Bahrain, the third test is traditionally the time when the pretenders are separated from the real deal. And if that is still the case in 2014, Bottas’ completion of 128 laps around two grand prix distances on the first day in Sakhir—while posting the second-fastest lap-time of the day as he focused on setup work, according to a Williams press release—is to be feared.

Not only do Williams have a fast car which is almost certain to be a contender for early-season podiums, but the FW36 is so impressive that the team can focus on optimising its performance for Melbourne while other teams remain in the ‘meet-and-greet’ stage with their machines.

Among those other teams are Lotus, who brought an early end to their running for the day after just 31 laps with a certain Pastor Maldonado at the wheel. With the Renault-powered team completing a grand total of only 142 laps over the course of its five days of testing, after missing the entirety of the Jerez test, the 28-year-old’s winter transfer is already looking like a poor career move to say the least.

While the Williams pair of Massa and Bottas stand a chance of fighting for victory in Melbourne as things stand, Maldonado could face a struggle to score a point and even finish the race. If you’re particularly cruel towards his aggressive driving style, you could argue that this is the norm for the Venezuelan.

It would be confirmation, if ever we needed it, that form really is temporary and class really is permanent.

That’s worth raising a Martini to, don’t you think?   

During Sunday’s US Grand Prix we could have witnessed the coming of age of the latest in a long line of Finnish F1 stars.

Valtteri Bottas’ superb drive to eighth place means that he’s now his team’s leading points scorer during his debut season with the team.

And whilst teammate Pastor Maldonado has been kicking up a big fuss during the build up to the race, saying he was happy to be leaving and even suggesting that his own team had sabotaged his chances during qualifying, Bottas has gone about his business in a calm, unassuming manner.

Williams announced last week that Maldonado would be leaving the team to be replaced by Felipe Massa. The Venezuelan's response, as quoted by BBC Sport, appeared more than a little bitter.

I wanted to leave the team and I'm happy about that. Overall, I feel I delivered more to the team than they did for me. We had a victory, some good results last year, and even this year we've done well in some races, but this is not everything. I'm waiting and expecting something more from Formula 1.

Relationships between Maldonado and his team deteriorated further over the weekend when the Venezuelan insinuated that the team had deliberately tampered with his car’s tyre pressures. He said that was the reason he was so far off Bottas during qualifying, as reported by ESPNF1.

It was quite a hard beginning to weekend yesterday and this morning but in qualifying it was even worse. I never got 100% from the tyres and I think in my car somebody is playing with the pressures and temperatures - it's not that clear. One more race to go so ... great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKKGKGx1cPQ

What appears more likely is that Bottas was just the quicker driver on the day and clearly the better driver on race day. Whilst the Finn was busy keeping the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg behind him until the chequered flag, Maldonado finished well down the field after sending an enraged Adrian Sutil into the wall on the opening lap.

From Sutil’s point of view, Maldonado was clearly to blame. He told Autosport that the Venezuelan was one of the most dangerous drivers in the sport.

There's like an emergency area around him, you have to give room for two cars, not just one. Whenever you get close to him, he brakes 50 metres later than everyone else and he's sometimes over the limit. It's more dangerous to drive against certain drivers. Of course many drivers have had incidents with him. I don't see a big point in talking. I've tried it several times, but he's on a different planet.

Whilst it’s true that Maldonado drove superbly in Spain last year to deliver Williams its first victory since 2004, his performances since have not been worth writing home about.

His latest outbursts will have done him few favours as he searches for a race seat for 2014. He brings valuable sponsorship millions from Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA. However, his preferred team, Lotus, are still thought to be chasing Nico Hulkenberg’s signature should their investment deal with Quantum Motorsports materialise. That could leave Maldonado with few options.

As for Williams, it appears they've got shot of a troublesome individual at just the right time and may have uncovered a real gem in Bottas.

Despite Maldonado’s accusations of sabotage, Bottas has out-qualified him on a number of other occasions this season, and his latest drive suggests there may finally be reasons for Williams to be cheerful again.