Australian GP: Williams F1 needs to find more pace after FP2


By Andrew Hooper
March 14 2014

After the positive start to Friday practice for the 2014 Australian GP the Williams Martini Racing team would see both their drivers drop down the times in the second session. Valtteri Bottas would finish in 8th and Felipe Massa 12th. Despite this both drivers were happy with the day but there is still a lot of work to do.

 
 Australian GP Friday 2nd Practice
 
Bottas
 

The opening Friday practice for the 2014 Australian Grand Prix would go as one would have expected for the Williams F1 team based on their pre-season testing. Both team drivers were in the top four with Valtteri Bottas third and Felipe Massa fourth.

With the start of the session Sutil would be first out with both Williams drivers coming out early with Felipe leading Valtteri. The first time would be a 1m:38.055 from Sutil but Vergne would go faster with a 1m:35.127. Both Williams drivers were still on medium tyres as more drivers took to the track. Felipe would set a 1m:33.462 to be quickest but Valtteri would move past with a 1m:33.227. just as quickly Hulkenberg would go quickest with a 1m:33.094 for Force India.

But Rosberg would go quickest with a 1m:32.103. and Magnussen was now third. Valtteri and Felipe had dropped to be fourth and fifth. The quickest time from the morning session was 1m:31.840. Vettel was now second with a 1m:32.755. Valtteri would go fastest in the middle sector while Hamilton was up to seventh. Valtteri would finish with a 1m:32.691 to be second. He had lost time in the final sector while Felipe who was currently eighth would pit after four laps. Magnussen was now seventh and team-mate Button third with a 1m:32.691.

Rosberg would continue to show pace going faster in sector one. Valtteri would go fastest again in the middle sector but was beaten by Button who was currently fourth. Valtteri would finish with a 1m:32.655 to be very close to Rosberg. But Button would set a 1m:32.138 to move into second ahead of Valtteri. Hamilton was now sixth, 1m:32.786, as Vettel went off the track at Turn one. Felipe was now down in tenth and Valtteri second with just over fifteen minutes of the session completed.

Alonso was now third, 1m:32.261, and Vettel fourth, 1m:32.634. Valtteri would pit his Williams having completed seven laps. Valtteri was currently fifth and Felipe had dropped to eleventh. Several drivers were yet to emerge including Maldonado. Raikkonen was now ninth but would have an issue that would see him stuck in the pit lanes the first thirty minutes of the session was completed. The first driver to come back out this time on the soft tyre was Rosberg. Also the soft tyre Ricciardo would go fastest with a 1m:30.597 but not surprisingly Rosberg would also use his softer tyres and set a 1m:29.782 to be quickest by 0.8 seconds over Ricciardo. Hulkenberg also on the soft tyre was now third, 1m:31.054.

Felipe would be the first of the Williams drivers to come out on the soft tyre followed by Valtteri. Felipe would set a 1m:31.119 to move up to fourth but was 1.3 seconds slower than Rosberg. Valtteri would set a 1m:30.920 on his run with soft's. This was still 1.1 seconds slower than Rosberg. Vettel was up to second with a 1m:30.381 also on the soft tyre. Ricciardo was now third while Valtteri was fourth and Felipe sixth. With the soft tyre runs completed Rosberg remained fastest with his 1m:29.782 from Alonso with a 1m:30.132. Vettel was third followed by Button, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Valtteri, Magnussen and Hulkenberg in tenth. Felipe had dropped to eleventh with a 1m:31.119.

Forty minutes remaining in the session and both Williams drivers were out doing longer runs with Felipe back on the medium tyre. At the front Hamilton had moved ahead of team-mate Rosberg with a 1m:29.625. Valtteri was on a longer run on the soft tyre. The Williams team were splitting their tyre evaluations between the two drivers. Felipe was the only driver on medium tyres while Valtteri would pit having completed twenty five laps on the soft tyre. As the session drew to a close Felipe would pit after having completed twenty one laps on this set of medium tyres. Valtteri would finish the session in eighth and Felipe twelfth. A large number of drivers had also reverted to the medium tyre in the closing stages of the session.

After the encouraging start to the day in the first session both Williams drivers would drop down the times in the second to be well over one second behind the quicker times. But both Williams drivers would come away happy with their performance in terms of reliability as well as the setup of the FW36 but did admit that there was a lot of work to do overnight to improve the performance of their cars.

 
Massa
 
Pos  Driver         	Team		      Time       Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes              1m29.625s  37
 2.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m29.782s  31
 3.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m30.132s  28
 4.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m30.381s  41
 5.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m30.510s  33
 6.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull-Renault      1m30.538s  38
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari               1m30.898s  32
 8.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes     1m30.920s  38
 9.  Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes      1m31.031s  34
10.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes  1m31.054s  33
11.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Renault    1m31.060s  35
12.  Felipe Massa       Williams-Mercedes     1m31.119s  31
13.  Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m31.283s  36
14.  Adrian Sutil       Sauber-Ferrari        1m32.355s  36
15.  Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari        1m32.468s  26
16.  Daniil Kvyat       Toro Rosso-Renault    1m32.495s  36
17.  Jules Bianchi      Marussia-Ferrari      1m33.486s  29
18.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault         1m33.646s  12
19.  Max Chilton        Marussia-Ferrari      1m34.757s  29
20.  Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault                 1
21.  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus-Renault
22.  Kamui Kobayashi    Caterham-Renault
 
Bottas
 

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Australian GP: Williams F1 needs to find more pace after FP2
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