Williams put hope on Spanish upgrade after another struggle
The Turkish GP resulted in a non‐points scoring finish for AT&T Williams today. A stronger showing in yesterday's qualifying put the team's drivers in P11 and P14 on the grid but a lack of race pace, combined with being too hard on tyres for a three stop strategy and some significant tyre degradation left Rubens in P15 and Pastor in P17 at the flag.
Sam Michael, Technical Director:
"We brought both cars to the finish again, but we just weren’t fast enough today. In the first stint of the race we showed some decent pace against a number of cars that finished in the points. However from the second stint onwards we couldn’t match the laptimes of those same cars. Small changes in the car balance can have a large effect on tyre degradation and wear. There were also some issues with cooling the KERS during the race. Our focus is now on the upgrades that we have for the Barcelona Grand Prix that will give the car a boost in performance."
Rubens Barrichello, FW33‐03 CA322, pitstops: 3 (10, 24, 40):
"We struggled quite a bit with straight line speed today and at various points during the race I couldn’t use KERS which made it difficult to defend and I also struggled with it locking up under braking when I was charging. We had a better qualifying session but we need to make some changes to the car to ensure the rear tyres can get to the end of the race in good shape. So it is up to us to improve our pace."
Pastor Maldonado, FW33‐02 CA306, pitstops: 4 (11, 25, 41, 45):
"It was difficult from the beginning of the race. It was difficult to maintain a consistent pace in the first two stints because I had a lot of oversteer. We had a much better pace towards the end of the race when on primes but I made a mistake by speeding in the pitlane which cost me a drive‐through penalty."
