Barrichello and Maldonado not responsible for Williams’ failure
The new chief engineer of Williams, Mark Gillan, believes that the two full-time drivers of the team in 2011, Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado, are not to blame for explaining the team's poor results.
Williams team experienced its toughest season since its inception in the 70s. With only five points, the final result is far from the ambitions of the British team.
Many observers thought that Maldonado’s inexperience and Barrichello’s possible lack of motivation could be a credible explanation for the car’s lack of competitiveness in 2011. Mark Gillan, who recently joined the Grove team, suggests a completely different explanation and defends the drivers: Having started in September, I can only focus on what they’ve done over the last six races, but I have been very impressed with the professionalism of both drivers. They pushed hard with what was a really difficult car to drive, which put them in difficult positions on the grid, but they continued to attack, and both did a good job.
According to him, it is mainly the design of the 2011 single-seater that is to blame: « We did not meet the objectives we had set. We had a lot of hopes after the initial winter tests, but we made fundamental design decisions around aerodynamic concepts that, in hindsight, were not good solutions. »
An observation that seems obvious, given the difficulties both drivers had in qualifying their car at the top of the standings. Only Maldonado managed to place his Williams in the top ten on the starting grid three times: The car’s aerodynamics were weak compared to the competition, so we didn’t have enough downforce. This meant that, in terms of tire wear and a few other areas, we suffered more than others, both in a qualifying lap and in general race pace.
The new engineer of the British team has apparently already identified the problems he will have to solve for 2012.
