Pastor Maldonado - Photo Credit: Charles Coates/LAT Photographic
Williams have said that they are confident of performing well in the Chinese Grand Prix tomorrow after Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna qualified thirteenth and fourteenth respectively today in Shanghai.
“We knew it would be difficult to get into the top 10 today but we were very close,” said Maldonado. “I feel that our car will be stronger in the race so I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We are in a good position to fight for points so it will be important to get a clean start and to have a good pace throughout the race.”
Senna was delighted to be close to his team-mate; in fact, he was just 0.006 seconds off Maldonado’s best time in Q2 today. “We knew it would be difficult to get into the top 10 today but we were very close,” said the Brazilian. “I feel that our car will be stronger in the race so I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We are in a good position to fight for points so it will be important to get a clean start and to have a good pace throughout the race.”
Chief Operations Engineer Mark Gillan agreed that the team’s race pace will be strong tomorrow, and is pleased with how the car has been improving as the weekend progresses. “Track conditions were good this morning and the car balance was better, with both drivers feeling their cars much improved from Friday’s running,” he said.
“We went through the first session of qualifying without too much difficulty but unfortunately both cars didn’t manage to get into the final session, with Pastor and Bruno finishing 13th and 14th respectively. Despite the disappointment of not getting the cars in the top 10, we are looking forward to tomorrow’s race as we believe that our race pace will be strong.“
