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Valtteri Bottas is hoping for a spot on the front row in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix and believes Williams can be buoyed by the long run pace it showed in Friday practice.

Williams has long believed Monza represents its best chance of a win this season given its low-drag configuration, and recovered from a slow start in the morning to break into the top five in FP2 with Bottas. Though he thinks FP3 will reveal more about its rivals Bottas thinks Williams has reason to aim high after the pace it showed on Friday.

"I really think we should be aiming for top three in qualifying, if it's possible for pole that's nice but its impossible to predict at the moment," Bottas said. "You need to believe in yourself. Today it felt really good in the car. This weekend could be good for us but let's see, we need to wait for everyone to get everything out of the cars.

"You never know how much [Mercedes] have left for tomorrow. I really think we should be aiming for top three in qualifying, if it's possible for pole that's nice but its impossible to predict at the moment."

Williams often starts slowly on Friday and had both drivers outside the top ten in FP1, but Bottas says an issue found in between both sessions triggered its afternoon improvement.

"We just went through the programme in FP1 and actually after it we found a small mechanical problem with the suspension in the car. We fixed it for FP2 so that gave me a lot more confidence in the car and it felt much better, because it was working like it should. In FP2 we improved the balance; the long runs especially felt quite good today."

Bottas says he is still wary of Red Bull after it was surprisingly competitive in Belgium thanks to its low-downforce set-up, with Sebastian Vettel going sixth and fifth in Friday's sessions.

"Yeah, not bad, it's quite impressive! I don't know, we will see tomorrow if that was everything they have or not because we should definitely should have a bit more pace to come tomorrow."

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