Formula One news

Williams encouraged by early pace

Friday's free practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix proved routine today for the Williams team as race drivers, Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz, evaluated set-up options and completed tyre comparisons. The pair piloted the FW29s in both the morning and afternoon sessions to afford them maximum preparation time ahead of qualifying and the race. Under clear Spanish skies at the Circuit de Catalunya, the team covered a total distance of 512kms. 

"We made a good start today and everything went well," Rosberg said. "We tried various directions on the set-up to adapt to the track conditions here and, as always, some things proved to be not particularly valuable while others looked quite promising. All in all, I think we achieved some interesting results. We also tested the tyres and found some pretty clear results there too, although we are not too sure which tyre we will go with for the long runs."

Alex Wurz commented, "Everything went to plan today while we worked through different set-up options and tyre comparisons. The only thing that perhaps didn't go to plan was that, every time I went out on new tyres, I ended up caught up in traffic so I'm further down the time sheets than I should be. It's Friday, though, so it doesn't matter too much."

Engineering director Patrick Head added, "We've been playing catch up today after a test where we didn't get a lot done due to two accidents and a wet day's running. We ran both cars through the different set-up variations which we'd planned to do last week. The guys working on the car, the engineers and the drivers have all done a great job to get through a busy programme and now we have a lot of data to get through tonight and decide which direction to take. The car seems to be running well and we hope to get back on course for a good result on Sunday."

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