Williams finished Friday in Hungary eighth and twelfth fastest as they tested completed the aero testing thwarted by rain last in weekend in Hockenheim, and concentrated on preparing for the event here in Budapest.
Nico Hulkenberg was faster than Rubens Barrichello as the team compared the two Bridgestone tyre compounds but Williams are aiming to get both cars into Q3 on Saturday.
Barrichello, speaking after the two sessions, is predicting a tight battle in the midfield this weekend, and knows that the team must work hard if Williams are going to beat their nearest rivals.
“My day went well and we managed to finish plenty of comparative tests which are important for the weekend,” said the Brazilian. “We can see already that it is going to be a very close grid and it will require our best efforts to qualify at the head of the group of cars we are running among. All of this makes it a very busy weekend in terms of the effort we need to make.”
Hulkenberg was pleased after the day’s efforts and believes that the team should go well here in Hungary: “It was a positive day for us, we worked efficiently through our programme and got plenty of work done. It looks similar to Hockenheim here in terms of our relative pace and hopefully if everything goes well, we will be inside the top ten tomorrow.”
“Today was a normal Friday for us,” added Patrick Head, Director of Engineering. ” Both tyres look stable, but it looks as if the softer tyre is reasonably faster than the prime. As Nico says, our work in P3 will be aimed at achieving top ten qualifying positions tomorrow afternoon.”