Williams F1 - Young Drivers Test Day Two

Driver: Pastor Maldonado & Daniel Juncadella
Chassis / engine: FW35-04 / RS27-5329/3
Location: Silverstone International Circuit, 5.891kms/ 3.66 miles
Objectives: Pirelli tyre testing with Pastor, new tyre runs and long run with Daniel
Weather: Dry and sunny
Air & track temps: 20-27ºC / 28-44ºC

Day two of the Young Drivers test would see regular driver Pastor Maldonado in the car for the morning session with Daniel Juncadella returning in the afternoon. For Pastor his morning would focus on tyre testing assisting Pirelli in their evaluation of their new tyres. Pirelli had set a programme for the team to follow in terms of compounds, run lengths and fuel loads. After six laps Pastor had set a 1m:34.392 to
be second. Pastors run had been on the medium tyre prior to him pitting to discuss his run.

After a short stop he would return to the track for a further run prior to pitting. The team would have to wait for a red flag to be cleared but eventually the team would see the session restarted. After having completed eighteen laps Pastors best lap time was a 1m:34.116. There would be another red flag as debris was cleared from the track. The track would go green and Pastor would head back out. This run would see Pastor run with a heavy fuel load seeing slower lap times. Again the session would be Red Flagged as a car was removed from the gravel.

Pastor would continue his test programme for Pirelli and by 2PM Pastor had completed sixty two laps. Pastor was now on his final run for Pirelli prior to switching over to Dani Juncadella. After having completed his run and seventy one laps Pastor would return to the garage for the team to arrange for the changeover to allow Dani to take over in the car. Dani would come out for his run late in the day and after five laps his best time was a 1m:35.728. He would pit and after a short break would head back out as the final hour of running commenced.

Pastor would speak to the media about how he felt that there was no reason for him to consider changing teams.

He said: "At the moment I've not been concentrating on next year. We have an order in the team which is to work very hard to try and fix the problems and improve our performance. I really want to continue here. It's one of the best places for a young driver to be. For sure we are not happy with the result of this year, we struggled quite a lot to improve the car and be quite competitive - everyone knows, everyone saw what we have this year. But the team have a great future, great potential and there's no point to change."

As for the FW35 and how difficult it has been Pastor added: "I'm not driving the car; I'm just following the car..."

With thirty minutes remaining Dani had completed fourteen laps. With a longer run Dani would complete his test with the Williams team having completed thirty three laps on the day.

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Engineer: This morning we did a tyre test with Pastor following a programme given to us by Pirelli. Ideally we would have liked to have modified the car set-up to better suit the tyres, but we couldn’t do this as part of today’s test so we couldn’t get the most of the performance out of them. We saw some differences compared to the tyres we have been running so far this season but we’ll do more fine tuning in Hungary. It looks interesting from what we have seen so far, so it could make the racing slightly different. We did another 30 laps with Dani this afternoon to complete our programme with him and give him the opportunity to learn more. We did some performance runs and a long run, and again he made no mistakes
and coped well in the different conditions. We are really pleased with what we have seen from him over the last two days.

Pastor Maldonado: It was a good day today. We completed all of the planned programme for Pirelli. The tyres feel quite different but we need to see how we compare against other cars on the track with the same compounds. We didn’t get performance from the car with them so we need more time in Hungary as we couldn’t
make any set-up changes today. It was good to be back in the car though, in preparation for getting back to racing next week.

Daniel Juncadella: It was nice to be able to have another go in the car today. The conditions were different today with the wind changing direction so I struggled to get used to the balance of the car a bit. However, I think it was good for to have another opportunity in the car and I’ve really enjoyed the experience a lot.

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Friday 19 July, with Susie Wolff driving for the final day of the test.