Williams pleased with progress

Team principal Sir Frank Williams is pleased with the progress made in Malaysia and is confident things will continue to improve. Nick Heidfeld scored the first podium of the season for Williams at Sepang with third, after fighting up through the field from 10th on the starting grid. Williams is currently tied with Ferrari on ten points in the constructors' standings.

Sir Frank Williams.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"I think the team has come a very long way since our first week of testing the FW27 in Valencia at the beginning of February," said Williams. "In Australia, nobody really showed their full potential, except maybe Renault."

"However, our result there was certainly much better than we expected. In Malaysia, we believe we made some progress and the race result was very pleasing for us and our partners."

Mark Webber could have claimed the third place that went to Heidfeld in Malaysia but an incident with Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella put the Australian out of the race. Williams believes Webber will be on the top step of the podium when the car competitive enough.

"Malaysia was obviously disappointing for Mark but we're positive he'll achieve a better result in the next race," the team boss commented. "However, he will only be able to win races when the car can win races."

"We've always believed Mark is capable of winning in the right equipment. He's certainly very focussed, very hard working and an outstanding team player."

As for Heidfeld, his strong performance was an eye-opener for Williams as much as it was for many others. "I must admit I was more than quite surprised at Nick's performance in Malaysia! We know, as we discovered in winter testing, that Nick is very serious about his career."

"Hard work seems to appeal to him, and our engineers find his technical interest, and feedback, hugely valuable. It has unquestionably helped him to understand his car in the past two races."

"On Sunday, we saw a very good racing driver operating at the highest level and we are very much looking forward to seeing Nick on the podium many more times this season."

Williams is well aware that there's a lot more hard work to come this season but is hoping for some more exciting races. "We have to run at the front this year but we know we are still some way behind the best," he said.

"They are constantly moving forward so it will depend very much on each team's rate of development as to how the season unfolds. I will be attending the next race in Bahrain and look forward to witnessing some more thrilling racing like that seen in Malaysia."