Williams Valencia test report 2010-02-03

Nico Hulkenberg took over the cockpit from Rubens Barrichello today for his first outing in the all new FW32 as a Formula One race driver. The team spent the day working on long runs with heavy fuel loads. Nico concluded the session with a best time ...

Nico Hulkenberg took over the cockpit from Rubens Barrichello today for his first outing in the all new FW32 as a Formula One race driver. The team spent the day working on long runs with heavy fuel loads. Nico concluded the session with a best time of 1:13.669.

The team will now return to Grove to prepare the car for the second of the winter tests which will take place in Jerez next week.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Today, with Nico, we worked on putting as much mileage as we could on the FW32 and achieved over 500kms at the end of the day, bringing us to a test total of 1,213.5kms. We spent the three days working on set-up and long runs; the main systems on the car are proving reliable and are cooling sufficiently. There are the inevitable minor teething problems to resolve between now and Jerez, but it's been good to get out on track and start work with our new engine partner, Cosworth.

Nico Hulkenberg: We covered a lot of mileage today, which is good and allowed me to get used to the car, and my first impressions are all positive. We did a lot of long runs on heavy fuel loads which have given us a good baseline, but we need to keep on working.