Williams: A collision, a gearbox failure, and no points

2011 Indian GP team review

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It was another tough race for Williams.

Over the weekend the team confirmed Mike Coughlan, who joined them in May, will be their new technical director.

Rubens BarrichelloPastor Maldonado
Qualifying position1513
Qualifying time comparison (Q2)1’27.247 (+0.71)1’26.537
Race position15
Laps58/6012/60
Pit stops20

Williams drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960
Rubens Barrichello129.967129.27796.72595.0494.53494.00894.08993.77693.54693.82494.61996.16495.14797.08393.2392.53892.80593.04794.02995.29893.95793.0194.15593.70294.43592.38292.13594.06291.69594.68391.91391.62192.08791.53195.153111.84190.60790.18492.00891.79391.93989.98190.57489.75889.41389.76290.16589.8289.85591.0391.52990.00389.9689.63491.23888.63590.84990.712
Pastor Maldonado104.51797.52795.19194.6694.34794.28793.94493.62993.82694.04994.27993.573

Rubens Barrichello

Start tyreSoft
Pit stop 1Hard 33.65s
Pit stop 2Soft 22.339s

Barrichello’s race was ruined when he tagged the back of his team mate’s car at the first corner, breaking his front wing.

He had to pit at the end of the first lap and switched to hard tyres to stay on a two-stop stint. He easily made his was past the HRTs and Virgins and set off after Heikki Kovalainen.

After switching to the soft tyres for his final stint he was catching the Lotus at around two seconds per lap. But he ran out of time to catch Kovalainen, finishing 15 seconds behind in 15th place.

Rubens Barrichello 2011 form guide

Pastor Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado, Williams, Buddh International Circuit
Start tyreSoft

Maldonado out-qualified Barrichello for the eighth time this year and credited his engineers for getting him on the track at the right time. But his race ended early with gearbox failure.

Pastor Maldonado 2011 form guide

2011 Indian Grand Prix

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    Image © Williams/LAT

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    11 comments on “Williams: A collision, a gearbox failure, and no points”

    1. I’ve noticed that Williams have very short press releases, compared to the other teams. For sure, there ain’t many encouraging things to say at the moment.

    2. I still wonder wether the bump Maldonado got from his team mate might have done in his gearbox. Another race where he was starting to do a solid or even good job but it just wasn’t meant to be.

      1. Pastor was looking strong, it’s a pity he couldn’t finish the race. However, looking at the top 10 it’s unlikely he could’ve been in there.

    3. As a Williams fan, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t just expect this sort of result. Rubens is getting slower and slower and Pastor is just having rotten luck, only real positive is that he was making progress up the field until the gearbox failure.

      2 races of probable misery to go before I can begin optimistic about the team again.

    4. Hopefully Rubens will be able to score a point or two in the last two races. Judging by the BBC forum, they will probably be his last F1 races.

      1. @Huron That will be so sad. It’s not like Williams aren’t capable of championship winning stuff. I would love to see another year from Barrichello, just to see him have a go if another Williams, assuming it can’t be any worse than the FW33.

    5. One of the things I realised after the race was that Barrichello wasn’t shown at all through the entire race, except for in the general turn 1 shots where everybody was all over the place.

    6. Williams and Hamilton are probably begging for this season to just end immediately!

      I really hope they keep that nifty lowline gearbox for next season even if it has had some issues, I hate seeing innovation like this go unrewarded!

    7. They must feel so incredibly lost at the moment. Best of luck for 2012 boys!

    8. Barrichello got shafted at the start, but it took him forty-three laps to catch Narain Karthikeyan.

      Summarises Williams’ season, really.

      1. That’s sounds pretty ominous, indeed.

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