Williams hope improved balance will deliver results
Williams' Pastor Maldonado qualified 15th with Valtteri Bottas 16th for the Hungarian Grand Prix tomorrow. After a promising start in Q1, both drivers were unable to improve on their first option tyre runs during Q2.
Williams however is hopeful of a good race result tomorrow as the team managed to improve their car's balance heading into qualifying.
Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer: We made progress with the car during FP3 this morning so we had good expectations for qualifying today. We started the afternoon strong with both cars looking competitive in Q1. In Q2 however, both drivers were slower on their second option tyre runs than their first runs, so we need to look at that as we felt we should have been closer to the top ten. Despite this, our race pace is looking better so we can still have a strong race from our grid positions.
Pastor Maldonado, 15th: "Over the weekend we have been improving quite a lot and the car is more competitive. We didn’t get it quite right this afternoon though but the car does feel better so hopefully tomorrow we can make up some positions."
Valtteri Bottas, 16th: "Q1 looked alright for us and I was happy with the car balance. I think the other teams had more in reserve than we did for Q2 though, which is why we ended in the position we did today. There are always things you could have done better and I wasn’t as happy with the car balance in the Q2, as in Q1 it felt better. In the last race we were close to finishing in the points though, so that is still the goal for tomorrow."
