Williams will field an unchanged lineup for the 2016 Formula One season, with veteran Felipe Massa once again partnered by rising star Valtteri Bottas.The ideal mix of experience and youth has seen the Grove-based team secure third place in the constructors' championship for two years in a row, and Williams will be hoping that stability in their driver pairing will lead to further success in the year ahead.Massa and Bottas should know each other very well by nowof all the 2016 team-mate pairings, only Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes have been together for longer.The lengthy partnership is something of a novelty for Williams, too. This is only the second time in their near 40-year history that they have retained the same driver lineup for three years in a row.To date, Bottas has been the top performer of the two, and he'll be entering the year with one eye firmly fixed on a switch to a larger team for 2017. But Massa has rarely been too far behind his younger team-mate, and he'll have no intention of letting the Finn establish himself as the team's clear No. 1 driver.The two men were at very different points in their respective careers when they were paired together at Williams at the start of 2014.Bottas was regarded as one of the sport's most promising young drivers. The Finn had just completed his first season in F1, but the uncompetitive FW35 car had given him only a handful of opportunities to show his talents.One of these was qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, where Bottas took third on a damp track. Though he fell back in the racethe fault of the car, not the driverhe made his mark, and when the sport returned to North America toward the end of the year, he was once again a star of the weekend.Bottas qualified ninth and finished eighth at the United States Grand Prixsecuring the first points of his career. He looked like he was set to become one of the men who would shape the next decade of F1.Massa, by contrast, appeared to be coming toward the end of his time in the sport.His 2013 season had been disappointingas Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso won two races and finished second in the drivers' standings, the Brazilian managed just one podium on his way to eighth.It was the third consecutive year in which Massa had scored fewer than half of Alonso's points, and the Ferrari management finally decided enough was enough. Kimi Raikkonen was brought in to replace him and Massa headed to Williams, looking to kick-start his flagging career.In the opening half of the 2014 season, Bottas looked to be on top. A string of three consecutive podiums in the Austrian, British and German Grands Prix saw him placed fifth in the championship with 91 points after 10 of the 19 races.Massa, though not too far behind his team-mate pace-wise, was having a harder time. Despite taking his first pole position since 2008 at the Austrian Grand Prix, he finished in the points just four times in the first 10 grands prix and scored a mere 30 points.With Bottas looking mighty and Massa struggling to string together a solid run of results, it looked like the Finn would run away with the intra-team battle. His performances were of a sufficiently high level that Claire Williams, per the Guardian, and Sky Sports'Mike Wise and Jamie Galloway all described him as a future world champion.But being flipped upside down at the first corner in Germany must have flicked a switch in Massa's head, because he was a different driver in the final nine races.The Brazilian matched Bottas' three podiums in this period and chalked up 104 additional points, beating his team-mate's tally of 95.Though Bottas prevailed overall by a substantial margin186 points to Massa's 134the second half of the season had shown that the veteran still had what it took to compete at the highest level.Williams were a little less competitive in 2015, so opportunities for podium finishes were few and far between.Massa was able to take the early initiative with fourth place at the season-opening race, as Bottas was forced out with a back injury. The Finn hit back at the following grand prix, overtaking his team-mate in the closing stages to finish fifth, but Massa was back ahead at the third race of the year, in China.The early part of the season followed this to-and-fro pattern, with neither driver able to establish himself as the team leader. By the time the F1 circus departed from Budapest after the 10th round of the season, Bottas led the way on 77 pointsbut Massa was only three points back, on 74.Their closeness was surprising given Bottas' reputation as one of the sport's future stars; his absence from the Australian round went some way to excusing the small gap, but he didn't appear to be on top form either.His qualifying displays in particular seemed a little "off." Massa was leading the intra-team battle at this stage, having outqualfied Bottas as many times in the opening 10 roundssixas he did in the entire 2014 season.Something wasn't quite right, and in an interview with the official F1 website during the summer break, Bottas revealed that rumours linking him to a switch to Ferrari for 2016 had been unhelpful. Asked if they had been an unnecessary distraction, he replied:The key word is unnecessary because most of what was rumoured was simply not true. And it simply didnt do any good for mine and the teams relationship. So these kinds of rumours are pretty unfair. From now on it will be easier as everybody knows what the situation is.But he was also quick to praise the improvement shown by his team-mate, saying of Massa: "He is a quick driver. He was nearly a world champion and has been driving really well this year so farpossibly driving a bit better than last year."The Ferrari rumours were put to bed by the time the second half of the season kicked off, and the single-lap pace for which the Finn had been known in 2014 suddenly returned. He qualified ahead of Massa four times in the five races from Belgium to Russia, but race-day luck was not always on his side.Bottas lost the opportunity for a good result at Spa after the team accidentally fitted a medium-compound tyre as part of a set of softs, while Kimi Raikkonen's ill-timed final-lap lunge at Sochi cost his fellow Finn a podium.Massa had mixed fortunes; a great weekend at Monza brought him a second podium of the season, but his gearbox failed at the Singapore Grand Prix and a collision with Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap ended his hopes in Suzuka.The result was that the Williams pair remained very close in terms of pointsafter 15 rounds, Bottas was two clear of Massa.Neither man had the best end to the year, both failing to score in two of the final four races, but Bottas achieved his second podium of the season after a fine drive to third in Mexico. This helped him to secure fifth in the championship standings at the end of the year; Massa was sixth, 15 points behind.Bottas also won the qualifying scrap after a difficult start to the year, edging out Massa 11-8.That the Finn "won" both main battles with Massa was fairthough the two were more evenly matched than many expected, Bottas was unquestionably the better driver throughout the course of the season.But he hadn't quite been as impressive as he might have hoped. In Autosport's team principals' driver rankings, Bottas was rated as the seventh-best driver of the season; in 2014, he had been ranked fourth.Massa, meanwhile, despite appearing closer to his team-mate in terms of on-track performance, slipped outside the top 10 after coming sixth in 2014.Looking ahead, 2016 is very much an audition for both drivers. For Bottas, the season will be about assuring the big teams that he really does have what it takes to become a champion in the future.Williams have performed well over the last two seasons, but without a major investment from somewhereprobably in the form of a works deal with an engine manufacturerthey are not going to give the 26-year-old the chance to become a world champion.Only the larger, wealthier teams can offer thatand Bottas is definitely on at least one of their radars. Per ESPN's Laurence Edmondson, Ferrari spoke to Williams about acquiring his signature for 2016, but eventually opted to retain Raikkonen for another year.Sky Sports speculated the hefty sum Ferrari would have had to pay to buy Bottas out of his Williams contractaround 10 millionmay have swayed their decision.However, providing he doesn't sign any additional deal with his current team, Bottas will be free to move at the end of 2016.There will almost certainly be a vacancy at Ferrari, while Mercedes may also find themselves in need of a new driverand their executive director, Toto Wolff, is one of Bottas' managers.The new Renault works team may also be in the market for a top-level star driver.Bottas needs to find a way to put aside the distracting question marks over his future and ensure he not only beats Massa in 2016, but crushes him. The Brazilian is a very good driver with a huge amount of experience, but a genuine "future world champion" should be capable of putting him firmly in the shade.F1 is not short on rising stars and Bottas will be 27 by the end of the season. If he really is capable of writing his name into the history books, 2016 is the year he needs to prove it.Massa has a very different task ahead of him. He is not guaranteed a seat at Williams beyond the end of 2016, and he will turn 35 in April. No driver can go on forever, and retirement is already starting to cross his mind.Speaking to UOL Esporte (h/tAutoweek) in November, the 34-year-old revealed:Next year will be the last of my contract, so I think it will be the most important season to understand if I continue or not.If I have the chance to race on a competitive team, I stay. Otherwise, I stop.I will be in F1 if I have a team like Williams, where I am very happy to drive and they are also happy to have me. When you love working somewhere and feel loved as well, that is what gives the motivation to continue.He went on to add that, though he doesn't quite feel ready yet, "I don't think I will be afraid to stop."If he does decide to hang up his helmet, no one could blame himbut if he continues to drive as he did in 2015, he still has a lot to offer the sport and his team.Massa's insistence on a competitive car leaves him with no realistic options beyond remaining with Williams, so his 2016 will be all about proving to them that he is still a valuable asset to have.And that means he has to, at the very least, keep Bottas honest throughout the course of the year.
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