Williams is making changes to Valtteri Bottas car in view of his Melbourne back problem.

The Finn suffered has a (very small) tear in the annular part of a disc in his lower back during qualifying for the season opener, subsequently claiming that it felt like being stabbed in the back. Not unusual in F1 you might well say.

Having been given the green light to return to work, Bottas has revealed that the Grove outfit is making changes to his cockpit in order to prevent a reoccurrence.

"The back is in a more neutral position in the car, so there is less pressure for the discs," he told reporters at Sepang. "Now, I think we have got it right.

"It's quite a big amount of changes to make sure everything is in a neutral position with the back so when the compression comes, it goes to all the discs with similar pressures," he added.

"At the end of last week, I could do some things without any pain and during the weekend," he said of his recovery process, "I could do some training, swimming and cross-training without any pain.

"We've been doing everything we can in this short space of time but luckily there was two weeks and I really feel confident about getting back in the car. It has healed really well and it's going to keep getting better and better all the time."

Asked if he thought surgery might be needed, should the problem reoccur, he said: "At this point it doesn't seem necessary at all. We just need to keep working on the things we think caused this. We have quite a good idea and have changed the seat and pedal positions as well as more focussed training on those critical deep muscles in the lower back and hip area."

Just as a precaution however, the team has signed Adrian Sutil as reserve driver.

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