Off track excursion for Maldonado limits running
Behind the wheel of the F33 for the second day in Jerez, Spain, Pastor Maldonado only managed to complete 38 laps as he lost time due to systems checks on the KERS system. And once he got to running in the afternoon, he had an off that ended his running for the rest of the day.
Driver: Pastor Maldonado
Chassis / engine: FW33-01 / CA320
Location Jerez de la Frontera 4.428km
Objectives: Setup work and long runs
Weather: Dry and sunny all day
Ambient & track temps: 20ºC / 25ºC
Sam Michael, Technical Director: Today started well, then late morning we had a warning message on the KERS battery. That required us to strip the battery to check if there was a problem or if we just had a sensor error - fortunately it was the latter. It cost us 3½ hours though. Despite that, we made some really useful progress understanding the car's aero characteristics with the setup changes we ran in the morning. We started this afternoon with a long run but went off at T4, the high speed left hander.
Pastor Maldonado: Yesterday we were aero testing so weren’t focusing too much on out right lap times. This morning we covered good mileage testing different things on the car. After a bit of time in the garage so the team could check the KERS, I went back out later this afternoon. We were just starting a race simulation when a couple of laps in I lost the car at T4 which put me out for the rest of the day.
AT&T Williams will be back on track tomorrow, Saturday 12 February, with Rubens Barrichello driving for the third day of the test.
