Williams Barcelona Test Two – Day Four

Driver: Sergey Sirotkin (AM), Lance Stroll (PM)
Chassis / Engine: FW41-01 / Mercedes-AMG F1 M09 EQ Power+
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655 km
Weather: Warm and dry
Temperatures (min-max): Air 8-21ºC / Track 9-28ºC 

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: A far better day than yesterday with Sergey running a long half-day across lunchtime up until 14:30, without any issues, but not perfect as Lance’s final two hours in the car were interrupted by a failure in the fuel system. Sergey managed a full programme of performance tests ending with a qualifying simulation on a range of softer tyres. He achieved good results on the soft tyre but unfortunately, we were unable to improve with the supersoft or ultrasoft. This is something we clearly need to understand. Lance completed the day with some further performance tests giving our final information before we get to the first race. Today brings to an end our 13-day pre-season testing session in Spain, during which we have run eight full track days and two promotional events, and given time in the car to Lance, Sergey and Robert. The weather has not been ideal, but the team have made the best of the time and conditions available. Considering this car had not even fired up just two weeks ago, reliability has been very impressive with only two significant failures losing track time. We have learnt a lot about the FW41 and completed all the necessary commissioning processes to be fully prepared for the first race. Well done to the team for the huge job done so far, and especially to our three drivers who have pushed themselves and the team hard but without incident, especially in some very tricky conditions.

Sergey Sirotkin: Today was definitely the best day of the last two weeks. We managed quite a lot of laps in the morning and the afternoon. We completed quite a good set-up evaluation as well, with slightly different tyre compounds and fuel loads, so it was an interesting and nice day. The weather was on our side which made the car much more consistent and driveable, which we haven’t really had until Wednesday. It was the second proper testing day for me and the best one of them. There are still some issues, obviously. It’s not all great and there are many little things we need to analyse and try to learn from to get sorted for Australia, but at least we found out what things are right and what things are not, which gave us a direction to work in. Now we will do some homework and see where we will be in Australia.

Lance Stroll: That’s the last day of testing done, next up is Australia. Today felt pretty good, I think we did some good running. We have some bits and pieces to sort out before Australia but I feel pretty good in the car.

 The first round of the 2018 Formula One World Championship gets underway later this month in Australia at Melbourne’s Albert Park on 23 March.