Maldonado surprised by lack of pace

For Williams F1 team driver Pastor Maldonado the results of the Friday practice sessions which saw both Williams cars well down the order brought a degree of surprise over the lack of pace from his car.

Pastor and team-mate Valtteri Bottas would finish Friday practice in sixteenth and eighteenth which would see them well of the pace of the leading cars.

As for what the Williams F1 team has to do Pastor acknowledged that the team has a lot of work to do to catch up.

Pastor said: "I think we are far away from the top guys today. We need to work very hard, try to understand our problems.

"The thing is they are clear - we just need to work very hard to solve it and that is it. We are a bit surprised by the performance here. But this is not the end; we need to work and that is it.

"We need to analyse why we are that slow."

As for what the Williams F1 team hoped to take away from the weekend Pastor added: "We don't know. [It's] really bad."

"In the tests you never know against the others. I was never convinced and nobody is convinced until you get to race."

"Even today you know more or less the other teams, what they were testing in terms of high fuel or low fuel, but it seems to be we are losing something against them and we need to see again in qualifying and try and find the problems."

He added: "I am quite comfortable in the race because we manage the tyres quite well. Not everyone managed that so we will see.

"It is not all qualifying and the pace. Remember last year's Sauber car started from 16th/17th [and scored]."