Sam Michael: Williams have new bodywork for upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Williams’ technical director Sam Michael has said that the team has planned to introduce new bodywork of their FW33 car in the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix, which will be held on July 31, 2011 at the Hungaroring race circuit.
Michael believes the new bodywork will change the cooling system significantly as well as helping the diffuser system of their car in the next race weekend.
Apart from that, the team’s technical director discussed the performance of their driver Rubens Barrichello in the recently held Nürburgring race weekend. Michael said that Barrichello drove over the German race weekend with a new rear wing and diffuser
system in their FW33 car. However, he said he could not get much from these upgrades in the German Grand Prix.
The Brazilian qualified and raced at the Nürburgring race circuit without the Kinetic Energy Recovery System.
Talking to reporters, Michael said, “We wanted to do a race weekend without KERS on one car to see the effect it had on tyre degradation due to the engine braking maps that we have to run. Obviously there is also a weight trade-off with KERS, so by not running
it you gain a lot of ballast.”
The 39-year-old driver started his race from the 14th place on the opening grid. He could not complete his race and retired from the German Grand Prix due to an oil leakage in his car.
His teammate Pastor Maldonado started his Nürburgring race from the 13th position and ended up in the 14th place for the team.
Michael went on to say, “Our wear rate was too high on the option tyre as we were planning to try and get to at least lap 40. Although the prime tyre was not as good, the strategy really fell down because of the traffic and blue flags we had to deal with
during the those critical laps between Pastor's pitstop.”
After a disappointing race weekend in Germany, Williams are expecting for a successful Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend. Let’s see how both of the drivers manage their race over there.
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