Sunday: Williams finishes the race, that’s something
The Williams drivers, Maldonado and Barrichello, have not scored any points since the beginning of the season. At this stage of the season, the team prefers to comfort themselves with the thought that finishing the race is already an achievement. Barrichello finishes only 13th, and Maldonado, in his first Formula 1 season, finishes his Shanghai Grand Prix in 18th, ahead of the Virgin and HRT.
Rubens Barrichello – 13th:
We opted for a two-stop strategy today whereas we usually do three, but I don’t think it made a difference. The FW33 hasn’t performed as well as it should have. I will work to sort this out and will need the team’s help. I am sure we can manage to gain in performance.
Pastor Maldonado – 18th:
«I’m happy that we were able to finish the race and thus have a lot of data on the performance of the FW33 over a long distance. We hadn’t been able to do that until now. My car was okay, but we need to find more speed and improve our performance. There’s still time before Turkey, so we need to improve. »
Sam Michael – Technical Director
There is nothing satisfying about finishing outside the points. The reliability was there, however, and it’s good to have both cars finishing a race which hadn’t happened yet this season. During the race, our performances were better at times, we need to focus on that to find ways to improve and thus increase our pace in qualifying. We have updates coming for Istanbul and we will try to optimize them by then.
