Williams “haven’t made the progress we hoped for”

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Williams technical director Mike Coughlan said the first day of practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix has not yielded the sought-for improvements in the FW35.

Despite failing to score in Australia the team believed they had learned a lot from the race and had a good idea of where they could make gains this weekend.

But after seeing Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas finish second practice practice in 16th and 19th places respectively, Coughlan admitted: “We haven’t made the progress we had hoped for.”

“We need to look at the data we have from both sessions to maximise the package we have. We will then head straight back to the factory to work on some improvements ahead of Shanghai.”

Bottas said: “We had a number of parts to test today following the race in Melbourne and we were evaluating different things between the two cars.”

“We will analyse the data to see what worked well and make some decisions for qualifying tomorrow. We hope to find some improvements, but we know we still have a lot of work to do to close the gap.”

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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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15 comments on “Williams “haven’t made the progress we hoped for””

  1. A real shame. It looks like it’s going to be another season of scrapping for points for Williams, after the breakthrough victory of last year and the promise of winter testing.

    1. Ban on their exhaust in testing is hurting Williams severely. On the other side, many personnel left. Mark Gillan left, so did Toto Wolff… Adam Parr’s still outside the sport. It’s not only their own low performance, but also the top teams has flew away and widened their gaps with midfielders. (plus Marussia looks solid and starts closing the gap). I think Williams’ facing serious problem like 2011.

      1. That exhaust bit was never going to do much, it was more about testing it to see what Whiting would say about that part. And maybe diverting attention from other, more interesting parts of the car.

    2. I had visions of Bottas kicking ass in F1’s awesome looking musclecar and extraterrestial smugness on Frank William’s part.

      Needless to say, this is what I didn’t hope for…

  2. MB (@muralibhats)
    22nd March 2013, 9:42

    For teams with the budget of Williams & Sauber… Its a major risk to move away from the highly rewarding 2012 chassis and do major changes. They tend to loose the attention they got for the good progress shown last year! I hope they get it right sooner.

    1. The Williams has got a new chassis I believe.

  3. Couldn’t Coughlan borrow some documents from Ferrari again ?

    1. I don’t understand why Coughlan get’s all the ‘hate’ for that. Stepney (nee Ferrari) gave him the documents.

      1. Yes and Coughlan refused to take them, did he ?

        1. who wouldnt have a quick peek

      2. Stepney stole the documents on demand.

  4. Rui (@ruicaridade)
    22nd March 2013, 12:28

    “”We know very well what is happening in the car, we just don’t know how to solve the problems,” Maldonado said. “We try different things, we improve a little bit but still there is a long way to go. ”
    – I support Bruno Senna so you can look at my opinion as biased. That said i see this as follows:

    – Fw33 – was not that great , however by having Barrichelo as a team mate , he could reach more than having an experienced team mate.
    – Fw34- difficult to drive car. Bruno did raise some head’s up on what should be improved in the car, and perhaps that input was more valuable than people think and even if it didn’t improve things for him it did improve thing for Maldonado.
    – Fw35 – no points raised. We have an amazing car. We will be fighting for win’s and one race into the championship we see these kind of comments.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Maldonado took his money else where next year. Maldonado and Button together? Who knows.

  5. It’s all Sam Michael’s fault.

  6. They should try putting some parts in upside down.

    1. lmao !!

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