One of the stars of last season was Williams' Valtteri Bottas as he emerged from a promising rookie season to storm into contention with several podium finishes. In Bahrain the Finn claimed his best result of 2015 with fourth position to move into sixth in the championship, despite missing the first race of the year. F1Zone.net sat down with Bottas for a chat.

Q: Hi Valtteri, thanks for having us, how would you rate the season so far?

Valtteri Bottas: I think so far a bit difficult; we aimed as a team to be stronger than what we have [been]. For me the first race was very disappointing with the back injury but there’s still a long way to go.

Q: Were there any specific goals pre-season?

VB: As a team we wanted to make a step forward and at the moment we’re a little bit behind the goals we made. As a driver I want better results, I wanted my first win but obviously there’s a long way go to. [Where?] So difficult to say! Any circuit really. My favourite track is Suzuka so maybe there but I want before!

Q: Do you think it can happen this year, the first win?

VB: Never say never! At the moment we are still behind Mercedes and Ferrari quite a step so to achieve that we really need to raise our game and to improve. We’ve done a better job in the races than what we did at the beginning of last year but we now need to improve the car and make it quicker, so that we can fight for better results

Q: Were you surprised by the step Ferrari made?

VB: Yeah, they’ve made a big step; no-one expected it to be that big. They have a really good engine now and they have a good car. It’s not going to be easy but we’ll do everything we can.

Q: Is it mainly the chassis that’s holding you back?

VB: I think so. There’s no big difference in the engine [between Mercedes and Ferrari] and at the moment they have a better car, we just keep needing to get more downforce, bring updates and make the car quicker.

Q: Last year development was strong at Williams so does that give you hope now?

VB: I have all the confidence as last year we were one of the best teams to improve across the season, so there’s still the change we can come back and fight for podiums and maybe more.

Q: Is catching Ferrari made difficult due to the budget?

VB: Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull they all have bigger budgets but we still have everything to make a good car and make the car quicker. We have a good wind tunnel, good engineers, last year we could even with a smaller budget we could do really well so it’s possible.

Q: Before Formula 1 you competed in Friday practices – is this more effective than jumping straight from GP2 or GP3?

VB: There’s so many different ways and for me iI think it was good as for one year I could learn a lot by doing many practices, learn and learn, and then I was much ready for my first season so for me it was good but of course it’s not always possible, it depends on a team if they can give a seat to a driver for Fridays, there’s other ways, like Verstappen showed also, so young but he can just jump from F3.

Q: Where do you see yourself improving as a driver?

VB: I’ve just been getting more and more experience really, in everything, I’ve improved a lot in qualifying, in racing, managing the tyres, but I need to keep working on improving more.

Q: Nico Hülkenberg will race in the World Endurance Championship this year – is this something you’ve thought about doing yourself?

VB: I haven’t thought about it. I wouldn’t drive anything at the same time as Formula 1. No. It’s a nice series but at the moment it’s not for me, for me it’s Formula 1.

Q: Have there been any talks about your future?

VB: There’s always talk about lots of things. I’m just thinking about this season now, just to make a strong result. The fact is I don’t know where I will be next year but I have a lot of managers behind me and I don’t need to stress about it.