09/07/2011
NEWS STORY
Pastor Maldonado claimed his best qualifying position of the year for tomorrow's British Grand Prix, putting his Williams Cosworth FW33 seventh on the grid with a time of 1:31.933 in his debut qualifying at Silverstone. A brief shower at the end of Q1 resulted in the remaining field jostling for track position in Q2, with times tumbling as the circuit dried out. Rubens Barrichello's final run of Q2 was hampered by traffic and so he will start 15th on the grid for the team's home Grand Prix.
Pastor Maldonado: Our car is working well and we gave a good performance today. It is Williams' home race so I'm happy for the team. I'm quite confident and really looking forward to tomorrow as I always enjoy racing at Silverstone. The circuit with its quick corners suits our car so let's see what happens.
Rubens Barrichello: I had traffic at the end of my first timed lap in Q2 which damaged my second timed lap as well. When a track like this is drying out you can lose everything so it's very unfortunate that happened. We need to see what the weather is going to do tomorrow but I think the car is a lot better than our qualifying position shows and the team have done a good job.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: It was good to have one car in the top ten today. We ran all the new parts on both cars - the exhaust, diffuser, front wing and suspension, which is always rewarding and gives the factory a clear direction for the forthcoming races. We're running to the FIA's 10% throttle requirement here which is something that will be reviewed again before Nürburgring. Seventh was a great result for Pastor in conditions that were more difficult than usual, and he's now in a strong position for the start of the race. Rubens was on it as well, but track conditions didn't go his way this afternoon.
To check out our Silverstone qualifying gallery, click here.