Williams approaches Belgium with optimism
After a strong performance in Hungary during the last Grand Prix, the Williams team, and Bruno Senna in particular, hope to continue their momentum this weekend in Belgium despite the break imposed during the summer recess.
Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer with the Williams team, is delighted that the Formula One Circus is resuming its march forward this weekend in Belgium: « It’s nice to be back in competition after the August break and the whole team has eagerly prepared for these last nine races. »
Gillan is delighted to return to the Spa-Francorchamps track and hopes the weather will remain favorable: « Spa is a fantastic circuit and a great challenge for both drivers and cars. We expect rain at the start of the weekend but hope for a dry qualifying session and race. »
Pastor Maldonado is also enthusiastic about racing at Spa this weekend, as it is a track that suits him quite well: « Spa is a very special circuit for me because I have had a lot of success here in the past and I really enjoy this layout. The circuit also has a lot of history, so it’s a race where you want to do well. »
Bruno Senna, on his part, hopes to continue the good streak started before the break in Belgium: “We have had a series of good races recently and I secured a good result in Hungary, so I am looking forward to continuing this momentum. Spa is one of my favorite circuits, and I raced here last year with the Pirelli tires (for Lotus Renault Grand Prix, editor’s note), so this knowledge should help our performance for this event.”
The Brazilian driver hopes to do as well as he did in Hungary by bringing some more points to the Williams team at the end of the race: « The qualifying sessions will be important and my goal is to make it to Q3 as I did in the last race, and from there, hopefully, I can score good points for the team. »
Maldonado is eager to measure his Williams FW34 against its rivals to see if the latter have progressed more than the Grove team during this summer break: « It will be interesting to see the performance of the other teams and to see who has been able to improve since the last race. I’m looking forward to racing again after the summer break and hopefully we can build on the progress shown so far this season and achieve very good results in this second part of the season. »
Mark Gillan believes that part of the performance of the single-seaters will rely on the DRS, which promises significant challenges ahead for the engineers: « Finding the right wing setting with the DRS will be crucial on this track, and we should see different aerodynamic solutions. »
