Williams feels it's now behind Toro Rosso in Formula 1 order

Toro Rosso pair Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr both made it through to Q3 in Melbourne qualifying last Saturday, sandwiching the sixth-placed Williams of Felipe Massa on the grid.

While the Toro Rossos fell back to ninth and 10th in a messy race, Williams technical director Pat Symonds believes the team's qualifying pace showed its true level.

"In testing, we were not completely clear where Toro Rosso were," he said.

"When we rank the cars, we put error bars on our rankings because it's not perfect data and we had put error bars which were more negative than positive on the Toro Rosso and that was a mistake.

"We should have made them symmetrical and then they would have been pretty good.

"Toro Rosso is the one which has really surprised us. The others are quite close to where we thought they would be."

Symonds admits Williams is behind Toro Rosso in the F1 pecking order at the moment.

"We probably see Toro Rosso, then ourselves, then Force India," he said.

"I wouldn't like to separate ourselves and Force India and Red Bull.

"Toro Rosso are faster than Red Bull. Red Bull played their cards well in the race [to finish fourth with Daniel Ricciardo], they made the most of it.

"But it's a sample of one [race], we'll see how things change on different circuits."