Williams hopeful for remainder of the weekend
After a morning session where Valterri Botas once again partnered up with Pastor Maldonado, it was Bruno Senna's turn to get back behind the wheel of the Williams and complete tyre evaluations. And the team wasn't too bothered with the rain, as it might help them should Sunday see some rain.
Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: "We had a very good couple of sessions today with all three drivers performing well and giving us back excellent feedback on what was an extremely busy run programme. In the morning both Pastor and Valtteri tested a number of different aero development items. They also established a decent mechanical baseline set-up. In the afternoon Bruno and Pastor ran different programmes, concentrating on getting more tyre information for the remainder of the weekend. Unfortunately the rain came earlier than expected and we adapted the run programme to get some information in the wet, which may prove useful come race day."
Bruno Senna: "It was a good afternoon getting a feel for the track conditions and how the tyres were performing. The car was behaving well but we need to keep working. There is good potential in the car though which makes me happy ahead of qualifying tomorrow."
Pastor Maldonado: "It was a busy day for us trying a few different things to help us decide which direction to go regarding set-up for the weekend. We didn’t complete all our planned long runs because of the rain this afternoon so it’s difficult to say where we are. I’m still feeling confident for the weekend but we have some work to do in practice tomorrow morning to make sure we can improve before qualifying."
Valtteri Bottas: "It was a good first practice for us. It was dry so we completed our programme without any problems. The car felt good but we were also able to make some improvements during the session. There are still some things to fine tune but overall it was a really good morning."
