Williams – Bahrain Grand Prix Race

The 2010 season opened modestly for the AT&T Williams team at the Bahrain GP, with Rubens Barrichello claiming the last point-paying position by finishing in p10. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg sustained some early car damage which he had to carry for over 40 laps, hampering him on his debut and he ultimately finished in fourteenth spot.

Rubens Barrichello:
It’s good to have a point, but in all honesty, we thought that we would do a little better when we arrived here. So it’s really all down to us, we can see that the competition is pretty fierce and there were no retirements among the leading cars. I think we finished around about where we deserved so it will be up to us to close up the gap. (Prime/Option)

Nico Hulkenberg:
It was a tough and difficult debut for me today. Right from the start, I had to take some evasive action to avoid a crash in turn 2, which dropped me couple of places and a few laps later, I spun at turn 6. I am still not really sure how it happened, initially I thought there was something broken on the car, but it was not the case. I jumped the kerbs and maybe hurt the car a bit, as it was quite difficult to drive for the rest of what was a long and lonely afternoon for me. It’s been a tough weekend, but the practice and long run pace has been good and we need to build on that. (Option/Prime/Option)

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
It was today good to get both cars to the finish and one car in the points. Cosworth will also be happy with engine reliability after all their hard work over the winter. We went for a different strategy with Rubens on the prime tyre, but it looks like the option was quite strong. Nico had car damage after an early spin, so he spent the race learning about the tyres. We are looking forward to Melbourne and taking a step up in performance.

I’m Still Standing

A ten-part F1 Big Picture series celebrating the return of F1 in Bahrain. Rubens Barrichello prepares to get back in the car for Free Practice in Bahrain. The veteran racer is one of only two drivers on the grid who have experienced Grands Prix with no refuelling, and Rubens has said he is extremely grateful to still be in the sport and he’s ready to fight for wins.

Credit: Lorenzo Bellanca/LAT Photographic

Williams – Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying

It was a solid if unspectacular start to the AT&T Williams team 2010 season today, with both Rubens and Nico progressing into the second qualifying session, but failing to meet their ambitions to finish the day inside the top ten. Both drivers remain confident of a strong performance tomorrow in a race to be run to new and significantly different regulations.

Rubens Barrichello:
I think Williams did well today, not as well as any of us would wish, but we have had some minor problems and we lost some running time yesterday. This meant we were playing catch up this morning. But our general direction is good, we have a good understanding in the garage and we have real belief in the team. So we almost made it to final qualifying – I was just a little bit behind Jenson, so it was not so bad and of course I have some new tyres for tomorrow, which will be helpful.

Nico Hulkenberg:
I had hoped to achieve more in my first qualifying session, but we didn’t get the car quite perfect and I didn’t manage to put the good lap together. This combination is very costly as you would expect in Formula One and we didn’t therefore make it into Q3. It is probably not worth speculating too much on the race tomorrow, the only thing I can say with certainty is that it will be tough for everyone and I believe the key thing will be managing our tyres well.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
We thought we should be able to get through to Q3, but it wasn’t to happen today. Rubens did well to make up some ground after practice and it was Nico’s first Formula One qualifying session. Our focus is now on the race, using our normally competitive starts to make position on the first lap and then race hard for points. Thank you also to our mechanics who’ve put in some really hard hours trackside over the last three days.

Williams – Bahrain Grand Prix Practice

Sam Michael, Technical Director
“It was a very busy day with the usual teething problems. We lost some track time due to an electrics problem in the garage in the morning and we also had minor technical issues to resolve on the cars. We then had a much more productive afternoon looking at race set-ups and qualifying preparation. We have more work to do, but nothing that looks unachievable. It has been a marathon effort from everyone at Williams and Cosworth to get us to this stage and soon the hard work will start to pay off.

Nico Hulkenberg
“It’s still very difficult to form a picture of where everyone is at competitively, but I am satisfied that we had a relatively good day today and managed to compete everything we set out to do. The ambition remains the same, to make sure we get through to Q3 and to finish the weekend with some points.”

Rubens Barrichello
“Because we had some minor issues in the garage today, we didn’t get as much track time as we wanted. We didn’t manage to finish our programme, but I am confident tomorrow will be a better day and we will catch up on the lost time. There has been an enormous amount of work and effort from everyone at Williams to get this far, which deserves my thanks.”

Tweets of the Week – 7th March 2010

Everyone is gearing up for the season to begin. The teams returned from Barcelona and got everything together to ship off to Bahrain. Plus, HRT became the newest team to launch a car.

• Everyone back from testing now (I think the boys are due a well deserved rest having had about 4 hrs sleep per night for the last month!) Claire Williams
• Seen some news from finnish media about lotus/minardi, comments taken out of context, not fair for our team, gonna combat it big time now! Heikki Kovalainen
• Hamilton thinks that we are going to be competitive this year. Flattering to be honest. We’re working towards fulfilling expectations. Force India
• had some regular check ups today and play bowling with the Barrichello’s…grandpa is 83 and still on big form…206 points today for him Rubens Barrichello
• freight leaves tomorrow midnight! 25t of equipment to go to Bahrain! boys are working hard! Lotus Racing
• Finally it’s official !! I am a Formula 1 driver !! Karun Chandhok
• In the middle of the press conference for the team’s presentation in Murcia! Will try to post pics of the car asap!! Bruno Senna
• Shame that fellow Oxford United supporter Ian Phillips has left Jordan (and subsequent incarnations). Don’t think he’ll be out of F1 long… James Roberts
• Maximum attack coding today. A week from now and the Bahrain GP will be in the record books. The off-season used to be much longer I’m sure! Geoff Creighton
• Sooo excited that a week today we’ll have our first race winner of 2010! Lots of extra live F1 stats available online during races this year Jake Humphrey

Tweets of the Week – 28th February 2010

Pre-season testing concluded this week in Barcelona, allowing teams and drivers to attempt to draw conclusions from their work. Preparations for Bahrai get underway, oh, and Mark Webber joined Twitter!

• On my way to the airport in a taxi, playing golf on my ipod, scored 54 on pebble beach! Wicked eagles all the time, I wish it was real… Heikki Kovalainen
• lot’s of questions about car:I quite like it…also the engine seems strong.Still very dificult to draw a conclusion about the others… Rubens Barrichello
• Good days work still learning loads about new wagon,team performing well,I have the feeling it going to be tight in the middle east!! Mark Webber
• Been note-making all night…my own version of pre-season training. Beats using medicine balls and running up hills!! Nightx Jake Humphrey
• Morning twts ! Today we have breakfast with Sir Richard and he will follow the tests after that. He might have a go on the car later! Hehe Lucas di Grassi
• Right… I am off in search of food and StefanGP’s containers full of spare parts which haven’t been made for cars that haven’t been built. Will Buxton
• Rubens is brilliant. After a full day of track running, he still did an hour & a half of media work for me (and let his supper go cold)! Claire Williams
• I had to dash to hear what Felipe Massa had to say. He says the 2010 Ferrari is consistent and reliable but rules out the team’s advantage Sarah Holt
• The Killers on high volume as Lotus Racing pack down after a very productive test session in Barcelona – bring on Bahrain! Lotus F1 Racing
• Test conclusions: Tyres working well, within predictions. Pretty close between teams. Bahrain is going to be very interesting. Andy Stobart

AT&T Williams Barcelona Test Report Day Three

DAY 3 OF 4
Circuit:  Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona 4.655km
Objective: Set-up work & long run evaluations with the FW32
Weather: Intermittent rain in the morning, dry afternoon
Average ambient temperature: 12°C

Pos Driver Team Best Time Total Laps
1  N Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:20.686 128
2 S Buemi Toro Rosso 1:21.413 106
3 J Button McLaren 1:21.450 106
4 R Barrichello AT&T Williams 1:21.975 101
5 F Massa Ferrari 1:22.344 115
6 V Petrov Renault F1 1:22.523 68
7 A Sutil Force India 1:22.606 61
8 S Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:23.123 51
9 J Trulli Lotus GP 1:25.059 102
10 K Kobayashi BMW Sauber 1:26.216 105
11 T Glock Virgin Racing 1:26.305 31

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Today we had some interruptions caused by rain, but we still managed to achieve just over one hundred laps working on race runs and set-up with Rubens. We’re now focussing our attention on some more set-up work for the final day of winter testing.

Rubens Barrichello: We covered 101 laps today, which is always good. Unfortunately, we had some rain during the day which affected the programme a little bit. Everything that the team has brought to this test seems to be working well, so it’s been a positive day altogether.

Tweets of the Week – 21st February 2010

With four more days of Jerez testing to cover, the teams, drivers and media were tweeting like crazy to cover all the action – or lack of it due to the weather.

• The weather wasn’t good and it is getting worse. Next year it would be more efficient to go in another warmer and drier country for testing. Inside Ferrari
• tough to know who is fast.Hamilton was running heavy and towards the back.Took fuel out and put the fastest time.Bahrain we will understand Rubens Barrichello
• It’s sunny. Then it’s rainy. Then it’s sunny. Now it’s rainy. Someone pass the VR wellies. Virgin Racing
• Seb top of the timesheets today and as usual driving like a man with his underpants on fire. He doesn’t really get the concept of ‘testing’. Red Bull F1 Spy
• Had a positive day yesterday at MTC.. Spent about 8hrs in the Simulator working through some different set ups. Jenson Button
• TEarly morning here in Jerez and dry at the moment. Mechanics worked on the car until 3.00am in the morning. All ready to go Mike Gascoyne
• Went to gym as the day got short for us, kicked myself in the butt after todays error! Now we are over it and tomorrow we attack even harder Heikki Kovalainen
• Red Bull, Ferrari & McLaren look strong. Hulk’s Williams fractionally faster than Schumacher Mercedes, but a lot of variation in fuel load. Steve Slater
• Jenson B also reckons Ferrari are the strongest team right now. He said: “They have better consistency than anyone at the moment.” Sarah Holt
• Spoke to Colin Kolles earlier today about his plans for Campos. Sounds like he’s got a bit of a job on to get two cars to Bahrain Adam Cooper

AT&T Williams Jerez Test Report Day Three

DAY 3 OF 4
Circuit:  Jerez de la Frontera 4.428km
Objective: Pitstop practice, race simulation & set-up work with the FW32
Weather: Dry all day
Average ambient temperature: 13°C

Pos Driver Team Best Time Total Laps
1 M Webber Red Bull Racing 1:19.299 115
2 F Alonso Ferrari 1:22.115 132
3 J Button McLaren 1:20.394 101
4 N Hulkenberg AT&T Williams 1:21.432 138
5 M Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:21.437 79
6 R Kubica Renault 1:21.916 100
7 A Sutil Force India 1:21.939 69
8 K Kobayashi BMW Sauber 1:22.228 28
9 J Alguersuari Toro Rosso 1:22.564 120
10 L di Grassi Virgin GP 1:23.504 34
11 H Kovalainen Lotus GP 1:23.521 68

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
Finally a dry day! Nico spent most of the morning doing pitstop practice with the race team before moving on to a race simulation. He then followed that up with a long run for set-up work. The cause of the problem which forced Nico to stop out on track towards the end of the session was hydraulic, but the part was high mileage. Nico will spend the evening working on set-ups and will continue running tomorrow for our last day in Jerez.

18-Feb-10: Barrichello Heads Up Second Day in Jerez

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Welcome to F1 Minute, it’s the 18th February 2010.

Testing again today as the rain continued in Jerez so that there was barely any dry running at all. Barrichello posted the fastest time of the day for Williams, although he also caused one of the four red flags. The others were caused by Kovalainen once and Glock twice, as the pair of them spun off into the gravel. Buemi suffered a hydraulic problem for Toro Rosso, and Ferrari spent much of the day with Massa in the garage – partly for technical reasons, and mostly because they were still sulking about the rain.

Despite his visits off track, Glock actually had a very productive day and finally managed to get 72 laps under his belt. He also wasn’t last with Liuzzi, Hamilton, Buemi and Kovalainen behind him. Virgin Racing Technical Director Nick Wirth said: “We had another issue today and pretty much every issue we’ve had has fallen into the category of ‘happy issues’, which are problems that are not fundamental, but are new problems that we did not understand when we got into this project.”

That’s all for today, I’ll be back tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

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