Juncadella debuts for Williams at Silverstone

F1 Test, Silverstone, Silverstone Circuit

Daniel Juncadella debuted for Williams on the first day of testing at Silverstone. He completed 55 laps in the FW35-04 doing aero evaluations and tyre testing.

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Engineer: "We are really pleased with Dani today. He adapted to the team and the car very quickly, and was straight up to speed with all the procedures. In terms of consistency, Dani drove clean laps and made no mistakes so we’re really happy with him. We were doing some aero development work this morning running lots of sensors on the car but we had a few problems getting everything to work together which meant we didn’t complete all the runs we wanted to. We now plan to do some more laps with him tomorrow afternoon to complete the programme including some longer runs to see how he can adapt."

Daniel Juncadella: "From the first lap I could feel the speed of the car and it was a great experience today. I’m really happy with the chance the team gave me. In the end, we couldn’t complete our full programme but I think we had some good runs this afternoon. I was happy with the balance of the car and it was good to try the new tyres. Physically I feel good, it was just quite warm today but as I’m used to closed cars in DTM I can’t complain really! I get on well with the engineers and team and we worked well together. The team has given me all the support I needed which has been really nice so I’m looking forward to getting another chance tomorrow."

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Thursday 18 July, with Pastor Maldonado driving for the second day of the test and Daniel Juncadella also getting behind the wheel during the afternoon.