Williams leaves Bahrain disappointed
Williams had a disappointing race as the team will leave Bahrain without any points to take home. Neither of the cars ended the race, as Bruno Senna retired due to a worsening vibration problem and Pastor Maldonado had to retire after a puncture on lap 25.
The 150th race for Williams with Renault was one of disappointment as both cars had to retire before the end of the 57 lap race.
Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer:
"Both cars had good starts gaining quite a few positions by the end of the first lap. Pastor’s first stint of the race was decent but unfortunately he spun on lap 25 due to a problem on the left-rear of the car, which forced us to retire him from the race. We are still investigating this problem. Bruno was running in the mid-field for the majority of the race, but a few laps from the finish he complained of a worsening problem with the handling of the car and we took the difficult decision to retire his car too. As a team we now need to regroup and keep pushing in preparation for both the Mugello test and forthcoming Barcelona race."
Bruno Senna:
"We did everything right on the first lap but unfortunately I was struggling to keep the pace to the cars in front. I think we were quite aggressive with the set-up today but sometimes you don’t get it right. Towards the end I started feeling a lot of vibration in the brake pedal. The engineers were looking at it, so I kept pushing as you never know what will happen, but the vibration got worse and the decision was made to pit to avoid risking an accident. It’s disappointing after two points finishes, but it’s a long season."
Pastor Maldonado:
"I had a puncture in the exit of Turn 1 and then spun on the straight. I’m disappointed for the team as the performance was there. Starting from the back of the pack I was fighting every lap. The car was responding well and I was able to make up many positions. I feel today we could have scored more points but unfortunately it wasn’t to be."
Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader:
"It was a shame that we could not get some points in the 150th race for Williams-Renault. We introduced some new settings this race to improve driveability and the drivers were happy with the balance. Pastor’s pace in the first part of the race was good, but from the starting positions it was always going to be hard to make up positions. All the same we’ve now got some time before the next race to look at everything in detail and improve next time out."
