Williams adds another 121 laps, but without KERS

Williams have ended the 4-day test session at Barcelona with another productive day. To allow for completing so many laps however, engineers had to disable KERS as a problem occurred even before the first few laps.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
"It has been another productive day but it certainly didn't start out like that! We had a problem with the KERS cooling system just before the session opened, so we had to disable KERS for the day. Pastor then spent the morning doing some mapping runs for Cosworth and running some new exhaust components for aero to check temperatures for the last test aero upgrade that is coming - all of that worked okay."

"In the afternoon we completed a race simulation with no problems. Overall it has been a productive test although we still have some reliability issues to work on. The final winter test will now be held back at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona from 8 – 11 March and we will be bringing our first race upgrade package."

Pastor Maldonado:
"We did 121 laps so it’s been a great day. We tried lots of things on the car this morning and this afternoon we did a race simulation. The car felt great. We need to work to understand a little bit more about the balance on the longer runs but I am happy as the car is getting better each time we go out."

Driver: Pastor Maldonado
Chassis / engine: FW33-01 / CA321
Location: Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona 4.655km
Objectives: Mapping and race simulation
Weather: Dry and sunny
Ambient & track: temps 16ºC / 21ºC