Pastor Maldonado finds the Williams FW35 “undriveable”

If the first Grand Prix is usually the occasion for teams to truly understand where they stand in comparison to the competition, the assessment seems rather bitter for Williams where Pastor Maldonado even believes the team has regressed: « I think we have gone back two years. We need to work very hard to solve the problems: the car is undrivable at the moment and we need to work. That’s all. »

In 2011, the Grove team had recorded its worst season since its inception under its current structure in 1978. The Venezuelan driver, then a rookie, had been the only driver on the team to make it to Q3, on three occasions, and could do no better than a tenth place finish in Belgium. Rubens Barrichello had a slightly better record with only two points finishes: the Brazilian finished in ninth position in Monaco and Canada.

Since then, Williams has renewed its historic partnership with Renault and recorded a more than promising comeback in 2012 with the Venezuelan’s victory at the Spanish Grand Prix. The British team was, moreover, more “betrayed” by the behavior of its drivers on the track than by its mechanics. Sir Frank Williams’ men were therefore logically full of hope for the FW35, which had only been unveiled at the Barcelona tests, participating in the first week of testing in Jerez with a modified FW34.

Eliminated in Q1 in wet track conditions, Pastor Maldonado hopes to perform a bit better in the race but is not very optimistic: « The track is very different with the conditions and everything else. For some reason, we haven’t managed to adapt the car to the conditions, whatever they may be. In the wet, we were slow, but in the dry too, so we’ll see. The race pace seems to be much better, but the qualifying pace is really bad. »