Williams spent Thursday in Monaco collecting vast amounts of data on the new aerodynamic components adorning the FW33 whilst also evaluating the super soft Pirelli tyre that makes its racing debut this weekend.
Rubens Barrichello ended the day as the thirteenth fastest driver. The Brazilian expects a strong performance in qualifying on Saturday and confirms that the team now have a lot of data to sift through before then.
“We were running different aero parts across our two cars today which means we now have a lot of information and another full day tomorrow to go through all the data we collected,” he said. “We also tested Pirelli's Super Soft tyres and I think everybody will be saying positive things about them. We should put in a strong performance in qualifying but we want the same for the race and to score points. Getting a good race set-up was the main objective of today's practice.”
Pastor Maldonado completed 79 laps on his way to finishing fifteenth on the timesheets. He was pleased with the new parts that he tested throughout the day.
“We did a lot of laps today, especially in the afternoon, and the car seems consistent,” said the Venezuelan. “Rubens and I split the new parts in P2 in order to compare them under similar conditions. I had the new floor and standard rear wing, Rubens had the standard floor with the new rear wing. At the moment, the new floor on my car is working well, but we need to look at the data from Rubens' car so we make the right decision for qualifying and the race.”
Technical director Sam Michael was pleased with the durability of both tyre compounds so far this weekend, and said that the team had had a productive day.
“We worked through all the items we wanted to today,” he said. “With 79 laps, Pastor completed more mileage across the two sessions than anyone else, covering more than a race distance. That has helped us gain valuable information on the aero parts we had on the cars and to properly evaluate a new diffuser and rear wing. Now we have a lot of data which we will go through tonight in order to make the decision as to what we will race here. Both tyres, the Soft and Super Soft, held up well so that will certainly steer race strategy.”
