Williams technical director Sam Michael described his team’s practice in Canada as ‘really productive’ despite the evaluations of new aero parts being disrupted by three red flags over the course of the two 90-minute practice sessions.
“Even with the red flags, we had a really productive day with both cars,” he said. “We evaluated front wings, rear wings and diffusers throughout both sessions and happily all of the new parts are working well. The tyres improved a lot over the course of the day and that will continue into the race weekend. We will now turn our attention to qualifying.”
Rubens Barrichello finished his day in P10 and sees some signs of improvement for the team here in Canada. However, the Brazilian suspects that reaching Q3 tomorrow will still be a challenge for the FW33:
“The team worked well today,” he said. “We had a lot of things to get through so we had to split our test programme between mine and Pastor's car. Everyone did a good job to get it all done and we now have a lot of information to work through which I'm happy about.
“We seem to be in better shape here and that might give us a couple of positions over the weekend. We will still have to work hard to make it into Q3 tomorrow, but I think it is achievable.”
Pastor Maldonado, who finished the twelfth, did not come across quite as upbeat as Rubens, possibly because of technical problems that limited him to just 20 laps in the morning session.
“That was a positive day, although we did have some problems on my car in the morning which meant we didn't get to run the prime tyres, only the medium,” said the Venezuelan. “We had a better afternoon and our pace appears strong, even over long runs. All seems to be working ok so let's see what we can do in qualifying.”
