Friday: A good day for the Williams team
The Williams drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, did not encounter any issues on the first day of the Australian Grand Prix tests. Both men completed many laps and will now have to work with their engineers to prepare for the qualifying sessions and the race.
Valtteri Bottas (No. 77) – 3rd and 8th
After running many laps in private testing this winter, the Williams team was well-prepared for the first practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix. The first day went smoothly for Valtteri Bottas: « It was a good day for us. We didn’t encounter any major problems with the car during the two sessions, so the team did a very good job with the car as it has been completely dismantled and analyzed since the last tests. We managed to complete our program, conduct various setup tests for long and short stints, so we collected a lot of interesting data. »
The Finn remains nonetheless lucid and knows that they will need to further improve the FW36’s settings for the rest of the weekend: « We managed to improve the car’s balance between free practice 1 and 2 and even though it behaves well, there is still a lot of work to do to improve the car’s performance for tomorrow’s qualifying. »
Felipe Massa (n°19) – 4th and 12th
On the side of his teammate, Felipe Massa, the same observation, a good day with no particular issues to report: « It was pleasant to cover a large number of laps on track today and a chance to understand how the car behaves on this particular circuit. The car did not encounter any issues which is very positive as reliability will be very important this weekend. We have a lot of work ahead of us tonight to improve the car’s settings, but overall it has been a positive day for us. »
