Williams sounded positive today after Rubens Barrichello completed 118 laps on the second day of pre-season testing in Barcelona.
The Brazilian finished the day as the fourth fastest driver and suggested that things are finally falling into place with the FW33.
“We had a very productive day completing 118 laps which has helped make up for the time we lost yesterday,” said Barrichello. “Today was the first time I was able to use KERS, running with it activated for about 75% of the day so I am feeling happy. We also did some longer runs and I feel we are getting better prepared with everything ready for the start of the season.”
Technical director Sam Michael echoed his driver’s positivity, explained why plenty of testing mileage was important, and urged caution about reading too much into the lap times set here in Barcelona:
“It has been another good day of running concentrating on KERS, setup work, long runs and starts, and we've had no mechanical issues with the Williams Cosworth driveline,” he said in summary.
“Most of the parts on the car now have done quite a few miles so we’re pushing into that zone where you can have high mileage failures. We need to do it now though to avoid failures on race weekends. We’re learning more about the Pirelli tyres and how to extract the most out of them – there’s definitely going to be some tricks to that this year!
“Right now the rate of performance development is high for all teams, so it’s not possible to put any real indicators on pace order.”
Pastor Maldonado takes over testing duties for the team tomorrow.
