Pastor Maldonado - Photo Credit: Lorenzo Bellanca/LAT Photographic
Williams are hopeful of picking up some points tomorrow in India after Pastor Maldonado qualified fourteenth and Rubens Barrichello sixteenth.
Thanks to a five place grid penalty for Vitaly Petrov, both drivers will actually start one place higher than where they qualified.
“The track was getting better and better every lap today so you really needed to be on track at the right time,” said Maldonado. “My engineers achieved that with our qualifying strategy and the set-up we had worked. We had good race pace in the last few events, and we are close to the top ten, so tomorrow we will fight!”
Team-mate Rubens Barrichello is expecting a good race tomorrow, and feels that his car has got decent pace. “I was happy with the balance of the car on the first set of tyres and set my best time with those,” said the Brazilian. “When I changed to the new set, the car didn't feel as hooked up and the grip wasn't really there which was strange. It should be a good race tomorrow; the cars around us seem to be very close, so let's see.”
Williams Chief Operations Engineers Mark Gillan was pleased with the performance of the drivers today in Delhi. “Overall that was a reasonably pleasing day with both drivers doing well,” he said. “Pastor managed to maximise the current performance of the car, qualifying in what will be P13, with Rubens close behind in P15.”
