Bad starts and struggles on intermediate tyres meant that Williams leave their home race at Silverstone tonight without any points.
Rubens Barrichello finished the race down in P13, one place ahead of team-mate Pastor Maldonado, and the Brazilian sounded very disappointed when speaking after the race.
“We didn’t have the best of starts and fell back quite a bit,” he explained. “Strangely, the car didn’t feel good in the wet and it was a struggle to keep it on the track. It was also difficult to keep up with the guys in front of us. We had hoped for a better result at our home Grand Prix.”
Maldonado started the race from seventh place on the grid, but as soon as the lights went out, he started going backwards. “It was quite difficult for us today especially with the light rain shortly before the start,” said the Venezuelan driver. “Our car set-up was geared towards a dry race so we were compromised from the outset. Towards the end, our performance was better but by that stage it was too late. Unfortunately it wasn't the best weekend for us.”
Williams technical director Sam Michael explained that, despite trying different strategies throughout the grand prix, his drivers’ races were compromised right from the start.
“Our pace on the intermediate tyre wasn’t good enough today,” said Michael. “Compared to some of the guys in the top ten, our lap times on the dry tyre were respectable, but we just lost too much time in the opening laps to be able to make up any ground. We ran different strategies on the two cars to attempt to do something different to recover but it wasn’t meant to be today.”
