Williams used Friday practice in Valencia to test the vast array of updates that they have brought to the Spanish street circuit this weekend.
Rubens Barrichello finished the day twelfth fastest with team-mate Pastor Maldonado just one position behind him.
“We've brought a lot of upgrades to Valencia so it was a busy day for the team,” said Barrichello. “The new items still need a bit more work so we will go away and have a look at the information we collected from today. We will do our best to get what we can from the car to do a good job in qualifying and to get some points from the race.”
“Maldonado revealed that his day was cut slighty short, but added that he is optimistic of a good qualifying result tomorrow: “We covered everything we needed to today so that's good,” said the Venezuelan. “I had a small problem right at the end of P2 with a slow puncture so I had to end the session a few minutes early, but it didn't cost us anything really. There are still improvements to make, but there's no reason why we can't fight for a place in the top ten tomorrow.”
Technical director Sam Michael explained what the team were testing today and gave the clear aim for Williams at this European Grand Prix: “Today we evaluated different front wings, a new rear wing as well as a new exhaust system. After that, we worked on race set-up and covering long runs to assess the tyres. We didn’t have any reliability issues and our target here is to score some points.”
