Pastor Maldonado is hopeful that Williams will be much more competitive on Saturday after he could only manage sixteenth in practice this afternoon in Melbourne. The Venezuelan seemed to suggest that all focus was on race preparation and when attention shifts to qualifying, he expects to move up the order.
“We ran some different tests today on the car and the tyres, so we haven’t got the maximum pace out of the car yet. We have a lot of work to do before tomorrow, but we have another practice session to focus on the set-up needed for qualifying and we’ll be analysing all today’s data this evening.”
Teammate Valtteri Bottas was eighteenth on his first day as an official Formula One race driver but is also confident of progressing as the track rubbers in ahead of qualifying.
“It felt good to be back on track today. It’s a new circuit for me so it took a few laps in the first practice to get to know it a little better. The track improved a lot going into the second session with much more grip, so I felt like the car could still improve further. We will analyse all the data tonight and keep working on the car in FP3 to get everything ready for qualifying.”
