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SYNOPSIS:
The AT&T Williams had a disappointing end to their North American campaign
when a mechanical failure deprived the team of a points finish despite
running a strategy and showing the pace to maintain the competitive form
shown in Montreal a week prior.
When the team ran out in Friday's morning practice session, both cars
immediately found a positive balance despite the track being green.
Wurz picked up where Nakajima had left off in the afternoon session but
unfortunately lost significant track time when a gearbox oil leak
intervened. In summary, the day was spent on routine activities such as
mechanical set-up and deriving optimum wing levels and ran broadly to plan,
with the team assessing early on that a one-stop plan was certainly feasible
from a tyre degradation perspective. The only downside to the day's
activities was the lack of track time afforded to Alex Wurz.
On Saturday, with the changing track conditions, the drivers reported less
confidence with the balance despite the early progress made on Friday. Some
last minute changes were made to roll stiffness, but going into the
qualifying session, neither driver was quite as confident as they had been a
day previously, which ultimately reflected in their qualifying performance.
In the event, Alex was unlucky not to make it through to Q2 by a small
margin and should he have made the cut, there was a fair chance he could
have made some additional progress among those graduating to the second
qualifying session. He would line up on Sunday in P17.
Meantime, Nico did progress into Q2, but fared no better than P14. The
compromise from a disappointing session was the freedom to determine fuel
load and race strategy, with the team opting to one stop both cars on
Sunday. Come the race, both cars took to the grid on the soft tyres and
encouragingly, made a pair of competitive starts, an area where the team had
made significant progress in recent races. Despite both carrying significant
fuel loads, Nico moved up to P9 by the end of the second lap and Alex had
also gained five places to P12. However, Alex's strategy was compromised by
his start position which saw him caught behind Liuzzi's slower Toro Rosso
for the first 37 laps of the race. When the Italian eventually pitted, there
was insufficient clear track time for Alex to advance his cause beyond P10
where he eventually finished.
Nico's higher start position paid dividends and allowed him to attack more
effectively and he climbed to P6 as his one-stop strategy began to pay
dividends, overhauling Trulli and Webber in the process as they made their
second stops and setting the quickest one stop pace and running no more than
nine tenths of a second behind the fastest car on the circuit, no mean
achievement with the fuel loads and the associated tyre degradation he was
managing. However, five laps from the flag, an oil leak caught fire on the
exhausts and the ensuing fire burnt through the throttle harnesses, bringing
his FW29 to a standstill.
TYRES & FUEL:
Both cars ran similar fuel loads, with Alex fuelled three laps longer than
Nico and both cars running soft Bridgestone Potenzas in the first stint and
medium tyres in the final stint, consistent with all other one stoppers with
the exception of Christian Albers.
SYSTEMS & RELIABILITY:
The team suffered one minor technical issue in the run-up to the race,
namely the gearbox oil leak from Alex's car. In the race, Nico lost around
3s during his sole pit stop with a sticking fuel rig nozzle and his race was
terminated by an oil leak on lap 68.
NEXT EVENTS:
The team will be testing at Silverstone this week (19th Nakajima, 20th Wurz,
21st Rosberg), preparing for the French GP and track testing an aero upgrade
for the FW29.
SAM MICHAEL:
'It was very disappointing that Nico’s exceptional work in the race was
compromised so close to the flag and in the process, three valuable points
were lost. On the positive side, we are showing consistently competitive
race pace, but we still need to start from a stronger grid position and of
course ensure 100% reliability to really allow our competitive form to come
through.' |
