Q&A with Sam Michael
Williams went to Turkey with old front wings although with a new rear wing, which although being an odd combination helped in high speed corners according to the Technical Director, Sam Michael. The team ended the weekend with rather bleak results, with Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg in 14th and 17h, respectively. They now head to Canada expecting an improvement due to more upgrades.
Q+A with Sam Michael provided by the Williams F1 team:
How much was the performance of the FW32 compromised by use of the old front wing at Istanbul Park? "Running the old front wing cost us approximately one tenth per lap, but it worked well in the high speed corners. We will have the next evolution of the front wing on both cars in Montreal next week."
You ran various new parts on the car this weekend, including a new rear wing and rear brake ducts. How did they perform? "All the upgrades that we brought to Turkey worked as expected."
Nico's car suffered a hydraulic leak during Friday practice. How much did the loss of track time affect his programme? "We lost about 45 minutes out of the afternoon session which certainly wasn’t helpful when track time is at a premium. The mechanics did a really good job to recover the situation and get the car back out quickly, and we covered the majority of our scheduled programme."
Track and ambient temperatures were higher in Turkey than in recent races. How did Bridgestone's soft and hard compounds fare? "Both compounds worked well, as usual."
Rubens lost five places at the start of the race following a clutch issue. Have you established the cause of the problem? "The clutch bite on Rubens’ car was stronger than we had anticipated taking into account the data from the practice starts undertaken earlier in the weekend. We have the clutches from both cars under investigation in the factory now to see what the problem was."
Nico Hulkenberg was forced to pit on lap one after an incident with Sebastien Buemi. What needed replacing on Nico's car? "Nico picked up a puncture on one of his front tyres so we had to change the whole set. Unfortunately, that meant a really long stint on the option tyre because he had started on the prime."
Looking ahead, how do you expect the FW32 to perform in Montreal?
"Better than in Istanbul. We will have some more aero parts for the cars which should improve our
performance, as well as a couple of mechanical upgrades. We will also have the medium drag rear wings specific to this race."
