Maldonado aims for points for Williams in Barcelona
After the double retirement in Bahrain and after productive tests at Mugello, the men from Grove are eager to return to Barcelona to assess their current position among the competing forces. Pastor Maldonado hopes that his team will be able to score good points.
With 18 points in the standings, Williams has already done better than last season and is even ahead of two of its rivals: Force India and Toro Rosso. Yet, after the promising showings in the first three races, the team from Grove returned empty-handed from Bahrain, as both main drivers were forced to retire: “We have worked hard since the last race and hope that the upgrades we bring will help us score good points,” says Pastor Maldonado.
For this, the Venezuelan will return to a circuit he knows well, like most of the drivers and their teams: « We did a lot of pre-season testing here so we hope this experience will help us this weekend. It’s a very enjoyable circuit to drive, technical but always fast with corners 3 and 9 which are real tests. It’s also complicated to set up the car there because there are fast, medium, and slow corners. »
Bruno Senna approaches Barcelona in agreement with his teammate and admits his eagerness to tackle the race on one of his favorite tracks where he receives a lot of support: It’s a very demanding circuit both physically and mentally, with many high-speed corners and a technical final sector. Many cars will come to Barcelona with new parts, so it will be interesting to see who has made progress.
For Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer of the British team, even though everyone knows the circuit inside out, the task will be no lesser and tire management will once again be a crucial factor: « Returning from busy testing at Mugello, we are looking forward to the race in Barcelona. The first European race is traditionally when teams bring significant updates, so it will be interesting to measure the gaps in qualifying and the race. Barcelona is obviously a circuit that all teams know well and a track where conditions can change significantly over the weekend. The latest forecasts predict it will be hot and dry on Friday and Saturday, with chances of rain on Sunday. The track, with its long and high-speed corners, is particularly tough on the tires, so tire performance will be essential this weekend. Pirelli is bringing hard and soft tires to Barcelona, it’s the first time this season that we will use this tire combination. »
