Gearbox problem for Maldonado
Rubens Barrichello was the sole finisher for AT&T Williams at the debut Indian Grand Prix today. Starting from 15th on the grid, Rubens was involved in a first corner incident which forced him to pit for a new nose. Rejoining the race at the back of the field, Rubens showed good pace to finish the afternoon in P15 with the seventh fastest lap of the race.
While running competitively just outside the top ten, Pastor Maldonado experienced a gearbox failure which terminated his race on lap 13.
Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: "At the start, Rubens clipped the rear of Pastor's car while trying to defend his line to Kobayashi. Rubens damaged his front wing and pitted, changing from the soft to the hard tyre. His pace was strong throughout, on both the prime set and final soft tyres, showing a definite performance improvement over previous Grands Prix. Pastor drove a strong race too but stopped early with a gearbox problem, the cause of which is yet to be identified."
Rubens Barrichello: "I lost my nose going into the first corner at the start so I had to come in for an unscheduled pitstop. That ruined my race from the outset because I came out of the pits so far behind. After that, we had to change our strategy to a one stop to avoid losing more time. We dragged it back a little bit, but not enough to score points. It’s a shame because our times were strong and tyre degradation was ok so we could have done better."
Pastor Maldonado: "We had a problem with the gearbox today, but we don’t know the exact cause yet so we need to have a look into it. My pace was looking good before that and the tyres were working well. Just bad luck. We need to look forward to the last two races now."
