Williams Chinese GP - Shanghai qualifying report

Williams F1 Team

CHINESE GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING

Pastor Maldonado, Williams

Photo by: xpb.cc

Qualifying Notes
• Pastor will start 13th and Bruno 14th for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix.
• Bruno’s final Q2 time was just 0.006s adrift of Pastor’s quickest.
• Both drivers set their quickest times in Q2 on new sets of soft tyres.

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer:

Track conditions were good this morning and the car balance was better, with both drivers feeling their cars much improved from Friday's running. We went through the first session of qualifying without too much difficulty but unfortunately both cars didn't manage to get into the final session, with Pastor and Bruno finishing 13th and 14th respectively. Despite the disappointment of not getting the cars in the top 10, we are looking forward to tomorrow's race as we believe that our race pace will be strong.

Pastor Maldonado:

Bruno Senna, Williams

Photo by: xpb.cc

We knew it would be difficult to get into the top 10 today but we were very close. I feel that our car will be stronger in the race so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We are in a good position to fight for points so it will be important to get a clean start and to have a good pace throughout the race.

Bruno Senna:

It was the best qualifying session of the year so far for me. The grid is so tight that the smallest difference in time can make a big difference in position, so it was tough. Our race simulation yesterday was good so I feel we are looking stronger for tomorrow. Of course I would like to be further up the grid, but I couldn’t be closer to Pastor so it was a good team effort.