Pastor Maldonado completed only 37 laps on Day 2 of the Jerez test after an accident at the beginning of a long run ended his running for the day.
Williams had lost over three hours earlier in the day after a faulty sensor had required them to strip the KERS battery. Add these problems to the frustrations of yesterday and the team have managed only 51 laps of testing so far in Jerez.
“Today started well, then late morning we had a warning message on the KERS battery,” explained technical director Sam Michael. “That required us to strip the battery to check if there was a problem or if we just had a sensor error – fortunately it was the latter. It cost us 3½ hours though. Despite that, we made some really useful progress understanding the car’s aero characteristics with the setup changes we ran in the morning. We started this afternoon with a long run but went off at T4, the high speed left hander.”
Despite the problems that he has encountered over the last couple of days, Maldonado still seemed fairly positive. “Yesterday we were aero testing so weren't focusing too much on out right lap times,” explained the Venezuelan, who finished bottom of the timesheets on Day 1. “This morning we covered good mileage testing different things on the car. After a bit of time in the garage so the team could check the KERS, I went back out later this afternoon. We were just starting a race simulation when a couple of laps in I lost the car at T4 which put me out for the rest of the day.”
