Williams F1 Team
Valtteri Bottas believes that he can challenge Red Bull during Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix as he bids to collect the first podium of his Formula 1 career.
Bottas, whose retirement in Monaco ended a run of five straight races in the points, qualified in fourth place in Canada, albeit only 0.002s behind reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel.
The Red Bull driver admitted after qualifying that he is wary of the threat posed by Williams and Bottas reckons the pace of the FW36 is enough to challenge the leading group.
"We need to be happy with the result," said the Finn.
"It was really, really close. On the last run there was some traffic which cost the opportunity to improve the time, but luckily I had done a good lap on the first run in Q3.
"We've been competitive all weekend so I'm looking forward to the race. I'm very happy with the car, we've made so much progress. I know we can challenge Red Bull here and we have great straightline speed, so we'll see."
Williams team-mate Felipe Massa qualified in fifth place, giving the squad their best collective Saturday result since 2006.
"It was a good session, definitely our car shows good performance," said Massa.
"It was very tight from position three to six, with five cars in one tenth, so P3 was possible. Unfortunately I didn't have the perfect lap and it wasn't enough to be third, but I cannot be disappointed. I feel really happy for the car we have. The race is long so let's try to do a good one tomorrow, I'm confident we can have a good, competitive race."
