F1: Williams expecting a tougher weekend

Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa are expecting a less competitive weekend for the Williams Formula 1 team in this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The squad has been the closest challenger to the dominant Mercedes team in recent races, with Bottas having finished on the podium in the last three grands prix. However, the Finn finished Friday's second practice session over 1.5 seconds off Mercedes, with Massa even further down.

"We know here it's going to be more difficult," said Bottas in relation to Williams's hopes of beating Red Bull and Ferrari again. "It's going to be really close I think this weekend but that should be the target. We know it's not going to be as easy as some other circuits but we need to be aiming for it."

Massa, who finished in tenth position, echoed his teammate's views that the weekend is likely to be trickier for Williams.

"I would say maybe it will be a little bit more of a difficult track for us here, but let's see tomorrow after the qualifying to be more sure where we are," said the Brazilian. "It's not a perfect track for us but we will try everything for tomorrow.

"I couldn't have a very clean day today – especially to do the long run in the best way I could, but tomorrow is another day so let's do the best and try to see if we can be competitive.

Massa, using a new ring wing which he described as "positive," was unable to complete his long run in the afternoon because of an issue with his car.

"I was having a strange feeling on the right-hand corners and a different feeling for corners to the left so we need to check back everything in the rear suspension," he said. "Tomorrow should be OK."

Bottas did manage to complete a long run and said his pace had been encouraging.

"I haven't seen any pace of the others yet so difficult to say really, but all I can say is I was quite consistent, a bit of traffic in the run but we need to analyse it better."