Williams: We were right to let drivers race

Although there have been widespread suggestions since Silverstone that Williams should have let Bottas move in front to build up a margin over Mercedes, Williams has no doubts that her outfit took the right approach.

"We allowed our drivers to race, which is what everyone wants isn't it?" she told Motorsport.com

"We allowed them to race and we allowed Valtteri to try to take lead off Felipe. Unfortunately he didn't manage to do that.

"But even if he had, would we have held that? Even if the weather hadn't have changed? I am not sure."

Pace huge positive

Although a late-race downpour ultimately cost Bottas and Massa a podium finish, Williams say there were reasons to feel encouraged about how the team had fared.

"Of course we feel the disappointment of not being able to convert that lead," she said.

"But to have done what we did at the start and held Mercedes off for that long in the race was impressive, and it demonstrates we have made some key gains in our performance.

"So we have to take the positives out of it; that the team has done a great job to lead the British Grand Prix for that long. And what we said at the start of the race, that we wanted to score more points than Ferrari, we did that.

"It was [just] not as many as we would have liked, and it is disappointing we didn't get a podium, as the guys had worked so hard all weekend."