Williams drivers experienced differing fortunes in the tricky conditions at Silverstone today.
Bruno Senna once again failed to make it past Q2 after being caught out by a yellow flag, whilst Pastor Maldonado showed encouraging speed to line up seventh on the grid tomorrow.
“I was able to drive at a really good pace but in the end was just unlucky to catch a yellow flag on my final qualifying lap when I was easily on course to make it well into the top ten and go through to Q3. It’s frustrating but we’ll see what happens with the weather and hopefully we can be competitive and challenge for the top 10 in the race,” said a frustrated Senna, who starts fifteenth.
Yesterday, Senna had been caught out in similarly difficult conditions and crashed heavily just before the Hanger Straight.
“The conditions were very difficult because the track was changing all the time and we had to work hard to improve the performance. I was a bit unlucky at the end as I crossed the line just as the chequered flag came out so did one less lap than the others, but we are looking forward to tomorrow. We are competitive and consistent so will be looking to challenge for a strong finish tomorrow,” Maldonado said, who was lucky to avoid a penalty this weekend following his clash with Lewis Hamilton last time out in Valencia.
“Today was dominated once more by the weather. Based on yesterday’s feedback we adapted the set-up of the car to protect against the wet conditions. The drivers’ feedback was good today and both drivers did well. Bruno had to back off on his last run in Q2 under a yellow flag due to Grosjean’s spin which resulted in him not proceeding into Q3, qualifying in 15th. Pastor pushed hard in Q3 ultimately qualifying in 7th. We now need to concentrate hard to get both cars home in the points,” Chief Operations Engineer Mark Gillan added.
