Williams say that they managed to get through most of their testing programme at Silverstone today, despite the fact that heavy rain and ever-changing track conditions.
Most teams claimed that the changing conditions limited the amount of meaningful data they could collect throughout the two Friday practice sessions today, but Williams technical director Sam Michael said that the team will now sift through all the data from today and use it to make a decision on car set-up for the remainder of the weekend.
“All of today's running was done on wet or intermediate tyres,” said Michael. “We still managed to get through our test programme, however. That included evaluating diffusers, exhausts, front wings and revised engine settings following the regulation changes. We’re now going through all of the data before we make our decisions on what race specification we will run.”
Rubens Barrichello finished the day at P8 on the timesheets despite limited running this afternoon: “It's been a wet day, obviously, and that kept us in the garage for some of the second session,” said the Brazilian. “We'll have to see what the forecast is like as we go through the weekend. We finished in the top ten which is good but there's more to do.”
The day did not look so impressive from Pastor Maldonado‘s point of view though – he finished down in P20. However, the Venezuelan driver is still positive:
“It was quite difficult today because the track changed quite a lot and we were going between the full wet and the intermediate tyres,” he said. “We also had limited running, especially this afternoon because of the rain and because we wanted to save our intermediate tyres.
“We look competitive and the car is feeling good so I'm positive. I have spent a lot of time here and I love the track, so I'm looking forward to qualifying tomorrow.”
