Williams expect Ferrari “scrap”

Williams are expecting a close battle with Ferrari this season, after the two teams impressed in pre-season.

Williams kept their cards close to their chest throughout winter testing, but the pace of Felipe Massa on the soft tyre indicates that they remain the second fastest team behind Mercedes.

Support engineer Rod Nelson believes that their advantage over Ferrari isn’t as big as the final pre-season test last week suggested, when Sebastian Vettel was 0.4s off their pace.

He told AUTOSPORT: “I think he pushed too hard at the start of the lap and lunched the tyres by the time he got halfway round. So I expect Ferrari to be a little bit closer than maybe it looked We're going to have a scrap with them, certainly at the start of the season."

Williams were Mercedes’ closest challenges in a few races last year, but they were criticised for their lack of ambition. However, Nelson insist that won’t be an issue this year.

He added: “After the 2013 season, we were obviously focusing on regular points so we were probably relatively risk-adverse.

"We had to get a good stash of points before we moved forward from that and then we were targeting podiums. Then if things had gone our way we could've got a win or two.  This season I think perhaps we'll be less risk-averse.

"We have a level of performance, it remains to be seen what it is but I think we've got a reasonable idea. We can be reasonably confident that we should be challenging for good points at most races."

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