Japanese GP: Qualifying notes - Williams

06/10/2012

Pastor Maldonado finished 14th with Bruno Senna 18th in qualifying for tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix. Pastor struggled for pace in Q2, posting a quickest time of 1:32.512. Bruno narrowly missed out on Q2 by 0.35 seconds after being held up by Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso at the chicane on his final Q1 lap on soft tyres.

Pastor Maldonado: We've been working hard to make the car more competitive but for one reason or another, we just couldn't pull it all together today. We need to try to understand why, but tomorrow is going to be a long race so I'm quite optimistic. The gaps are so close and our longer run pace looks encouraging, so we aim to push for some points tomorrow.

Bruno Senna: It was a frustrating qualifying session as I was held up on my final timed lap at the end of Q1 and couldn't post the time that I wanted. However, it's a long race tomorrow and although this track is difficult to overtake at, we've been in this position before and so we'll give it our best shot to score some points in the race.

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: We had a tough day today with Pastor struggling with car balance which ultimately limited his potential pace and he qualified 14th. Bruno was looking very comfortable to proceed into Q2 alongside Pastor, having been 0.6 seconds up on his previous run, when Vergne blocked his lap slowing him by 1.6 seconds and leaving Bruno extremely frustrated in 18th. There are a few penalties to apply to drivers further up the grid which should promote both our drivers and we are confident with our race pace going into tomorrow.

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