Williams completes programme despite DRS issue
Williams had three drivers in action on today's very busy Friday sessions. Pastor Maldonado ran in both sessions to complete the tyre programme, while Valterri Bottas ran in the morning before handing over the car to Bruno Senna.
Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: We had a very busy Friday with Pastor running both sessions and Valtteri testing in the morning, changing over to Bruno for the afternoon session. We concentrated primarily on aerodynamic development items in the morning followed by tyre testing in the afternoon. We had some downtime in the morning with Pastor's car due to a faulty DRS system, but this was rectified between sessions. We now need to analyse the prodigious amount of data collected in more detail in order to maximise our performance for qualifying and the race.
Pastor Maldonado: We completed our programme today and the tyres were working well this afternoon. It helps that we have done quite a lot of testing here, but the track conditions are quite different to over the winter so we now need to spend some time analysing the data. I am feeling confident though as this is a circuit that I like.
Bruno Senna: It was a good session this afternoon and we completed a lot of laps. It’s now time to sit down and look through the data to improve the set-up of the car on long runs as well as for qualifying tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas: This was the first track of the season that I already know so it was nice for me to be able to focus purely on the driving from the start. The car felt good but there are still some things we will continue to work on this afternoon. Overall, we gathered a lot of data and had a productive session which I really enjoyed.
