GROVE-BASED Williams fell further behind in the race for fourth in the Formula 1 constructors championship after picking up only three points in the Japanese Grand Prix.

Felipe Massa finished ninth and Valtteri Bottas tenth at Suzuka as they slipped ten points behind Force India with four races to go.

Both drivers started on the medium tyre, but lost ground early on to fall outside of the top ten.

But a switch to the harder tyre saw them move through the order.

Rob Smedley, head of performance engineering, says Williams will continue fighting.

He said: “The overriding point is the car just wasn’t quick enough and that was been the biggest disappointment of the weekend in both qualifying and the race.

“However, we’ve got four races left.

“We need to regroup, and understand how we are going to get some more performance out of the car for the remaining races.

“We will push forward and not give up.”

Massa had been expecting a tough race weekend and that is exactly what he endured.

The Brazilian added: “We were really fighting from the beginning, to the end.

“We would love to have finished ahead of Force India, but they had a better car.”

The next round is at the Circuit of the Americas, Austin, on October 23 and Bottas is hopeful of an upturn in results.

He added: “ I hope it’s better and more like Malaysia in terms of our pace in comparison to Force India.

“It’s just so difficult to predict these things nowadays, so we need to learn from Japan and hopefully we’ll perform better there in two weeks.”