Good first day for Williams
The Williams F1 Team had a good day at Silverstone today. Alexander Wurz, the test driver of the team, topped the first free practice session. Nico Rosberg and Mark Webber both worked through their programme.
Sam Michael, Technical Director, WilliamsF1 “It was a good first day on all three cars and we worked through various set-up options we could use for the race here and we now have the data to go through. Bridgestone have brought two good tyres here once again and we have a reasonable indication of which way we will go on tyre compound - although we will look at the data later and do some more checks before we make a final decision. On Alex’s car we followed a standard routine of cooling, brakes and normal long runs for tyre degradation and encountered no problems at all.”
Alex Wurz “I am sure everyone will say the same today, but the circuit is different to the conditions at the test here. Nevertheless, we tried to be analytical today and not become too worried because the lap times were slower for everyone, so we just continued with the programme and tyre choice work. At the same time we did some set-up adjustments so we have got some information from all three cars and now we just have to bring that information together tonight. Today was certainly not the easiest Friday I have had, but that’s life and we will keep on pushing.”
Nico Rosberg “It has been very difficult to set up the car today, because track conditions are pretty different from our last test here. The track was quite green and it was very windy which affected the car’s behaviour a lot. By the end of the day though, it was going much better having tried a few options that improved the car, so I am quite happy about our progress today.”
Mark Webber “It was a pretty uneventful day and we managed to work through everything we needed to. Obviously the track is very different from when we were here for the test, but that’s the same for everybody, so we’ll work on that tonight. The tyre comparison with Alex went well and we now have some good data. Today wasn’t so bad actually, it all went ok. Hopefully, we’ll continue to enjoy the good weather tomorrow and we’ll keep working our way towards the front.”
Simon Corbyn, Head of F1 Race Engineering, Cosworth “Cosworth had a good start to our home race weekend at Silverstone. It is encouraging to run competitively at a circuit where outright engine performance is a significant factor and no problems have been identified with either Mark or Nico’s ex-Monaco race engines.”
