Sam Michael: Williams tyre choice for Silverstone paid off apart from Intermediates – Formula 1 news
Williams’ technical director Sam Michael has said that the team was spot on with their tyre strategy in the Silverstone Grand Prix of the 2011 Formula 1 season.
Sam added that although the Williams’ car struggled a bit on the Intermediate Pirelli tyres at the start of the race due to wet conditions, but as the soft tyres were used, the FW33 performed well.
Williams team had two different strategies for their drivers as Rubens Barrichello was on a two-stop strategy while Pastor Maldonado was on a three-stop strategy. Talking about the fact, Sam stated that as rain interrupted the plans of every team, Williams
tried to grab any opportunity on offer by having split strategies.
Talking about Maldonado’s drive in the 2011 season so far, Sam stated that the young driver has performed well in the season as he has been able to put Williams among the top ten starters by qualifying in higher positions.
Sam further added that Maldonado has performed really well on those Formula 1 circuits on which he drove in his GP2 career.
“Pastor is doing a really solid job. As a rookie, he is particularly strong on the circuits he has driven on before. All the signs are showing that he should really excel in 2012 once he knows all the circuits we visit and so can turn up to each race and
just concentrate on driving fast,” commented Sam.
Talking about the Pirelli tyres, Sam commented, “When you have conditions like that you need to be able to react and make decisions quickly, sometimes with very limited information. Neither car performed well on the intermediate tyres.”
Sam added that Williams brought a new suspension design for the dry setup which did not pay off as rain interrupted the proceedings in the practice session and not enough data was gathered.
Williams are currently tenth on the constructors’ table with 4 points all of which came from Barrichello’s car.
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