Williams failed to make any impression on the top-ten at the Nürburgring today, instead locking-out only the seventh row of the grid in qualifying for the German Grand Prix.
Pastor Maldonado out-qualified team-mate Rubens Barrichello to take P13 although, as technical director Sam Michael reveals, the two drivers were running with different parts today.
“We have improved on our performance from practice yesterday, but not enough to get into the top 10 in qualifying here today,” commented Michael. “We did run with quite different specifications between the two cars, with Rubens using the new diffuser and front wing and not running KERS, in order to give us more information going forward. On Rubens' car we chose not to race with KERS here in order to get some more data for comparison. Now we'll have a look through all of that data tonight while focussing on the important race decisions.
Maldonado, as was the case yesterday, is clearly still unhappy with his FW33. “It was a difficult session for us,” said the Venezuelan. “We were looking more competitive than this yesterday, but not enough to be in Q3. We were working more on race pace so we will see tomorrow. I think we have the possibility to score some points if we have the right strategy.”
Barrichello was also left hoping for better pace in the race tomorrow: “We knew we might struggle on my car as we weren't able to use KERS here,” he said. “We didn't have an ideal balance on the car, particularly compared to the morning, and it wasn't possible to get on top of that during the session. We need to analyse that in detail, and look for better pace in the race tomorrow.”
