Williams Barcelona Test 21:02:2011 Day Four

BARCELONA TEST DAY FOUR
MONDAY 21 FEBRUARY, 2011
Driver Pastor Maldonado
Chassis / engine FW33-01 / CA321
Location Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona 4.655km
Objectives Mapping and race simulation
Weather Dry and sunny
Ambient & track temps 16ºC / 21ºC

The final day of the AT&T Williams team Barcelona test would again see Pastor Maldonado behind the wheel. It would be a 1m:31.487 lap from Hamilton to set the first time of the day. It was close to 9AM and Pastor had yet to come out onto the track. Hamilton was still fastest with a 1m:27.561 from Sutil, Schumacher, Massa, and Buemi in fifth. It was reported that Pastor's car had suffered a water pump failure with the KERS, and that it would be at least an hour before he would take to the track.

The first red flag of the day was caused by Trulli when he was to put his car into the Gravel at the Campsa corner. The front left wheel and wing were damaged. The Lotus would be brought back to the pits on the back of a truck while on the track Buemi was now fastest with a 1m:26.241. He would improve his time with a 1m:23.806. At 10:10AM Pastor would finally emerge from his pit and on his first lap he would set a slow time of 2m:08.461, no doubt to allow the Williams team to check that his car was operating correctly. Buemi would again improve with a 1m:23.550 while Sutil was now second.

Pastor would set a 1m:26.635 on his first serious timed lap, to be fifth. Pastor would pit while Webber would go fastest with a 1m:23.442. After a short stop Pastor would return to the track and would set a 1m:25.297 to move up to fourth. His following laps were all in the 1m:25s. He would again pit from a four lap run, averaging in the 1m:25s. He would return to the track and would set his best time of the morning so far, a 1m:24.745. Again he would pit after a short series of laps, returning the track shortly after. His first lap out was a 1m:26.502 and then a 1m:24.057 to move up to third. Pastor had completed thirty three laps. He would pit again

Just before midday and Pastor was back out on the track completing a few laps prior to the lunch break. After the hour break Pastor was back out early finding himself running alone but he would stop also. But after a very short stop he would return to the track. His lap times would vary from 1m:34s through to 1m:31s. Pastor was on a very long run having completed eighteen laps so far in his current run. Overall he had completed seventy five laps. He would pit returning to the track after a short stop. On his next run Pastor would drop into the 1m:29s. He would continue to add to his tally of laps completing eighty six just before 2:30PM.

Pastor would continue his race simulation run and make his final pit stop. In the final part of his run Pastor would average 1m:27s laps. Near the end of the day Pastor would not make it back to his pit, he would stop near the pit exit possibly having run out of fuel. This could have been something the team had planned. This would see a red flag which would be withdrawn once the Williams team had recovered Pastor's car. Massa would set a new fastest time right near the end of the day with a 1m:22.625.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: It has been another productive day but it certainly didn't start out like that! We had a problem with the KERS cooling system just before the session opened, so we had to disable KERS for the day. Pastor then spent the morning doing some mapping runs for Cosworth and running some new exhaust components for aero to check temperatures for the last test aero upgrade that is coming - all of that worked okay. In the afternoon we completed a race simulation with no problems.

Overall it has been a productive test although we still have some reliability issues to work on. The final winter test will now be held back at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona from 8 – 11 March and we will be bringing our first race upgrade package.

Pastor Maldonado: We did 121 laps so it’s been a great day. We tried lots of things on the car this morning and this afternoon we did a race simulation. The car felt great. We need to work to understand a little bit more about the balance on the longer runs but I am happy as the car is getting better each time we go out.

The AT&T Williams will unveil its 2011 racing livery at an event to be streamed live online via its website: www.attwilliams.com on Thursday 24 February at 1100 (GMT)

DRIVER      	 TEAM 		  	TIME       BEST / TOTAL
						   LAPS
1 F Massa 	 Ferrari 		1:22.625   114 / 121
2 M Webber 	 Red Bull Racing 	1:23.442   16 / 69
3 S Buemi 	 Toro Rosso 		1:23.550   23 / 90
4 N Heidfeld 	 Lotus Renault GP 	1:23.657   92 / 95
5 L Hamilton 	 McLaren Mercedes 	1:24.003   104 / 107
6 P Maldonado 	 AT&T Williams 		1:24.057   33 / 121
7 A Sutil 	 Force India F1 Team 	1:24.177   55 / 64
8 S Perez 	 Sauber F1 Team 	1:24.515   70 / 74
9 J D’Ambrosio   Marussia Virgin Racing 1:26.501   46 / 50
10 M Schumacher  Mercedes GP 		1:27.079   25 / 114
11 J Trulli 	 Team Lotus 		1:29.992   4 / 18