Qualifying report

Bottas qualified 17th with Maldonado 18th for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix

On qualifying for Williams team, Valtteri Bottas just missed out on Q2 by 0.012 seconds, with Pastor just behind after a very close first qualifying session.

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: "We had a difficult start to the day after a KERS failure on Pastor's car this morning, which is still being investigated, but the team did a great job to be ready in time for FP3.

Valtteri Bottas, Williams FW35 locks up under braking

Photo by: XPB Images

In FP3 we could see we had more speed but we were lacking grip.

We made some changes ahead of qualifying, but unfortunately didn't make the progress we wanted to. Pastor then had a water pump leak in Q1 which meant he could do only one timed lap.

Both drivers also struggled to get the necessary temperature into their tyres.

We now need to look to tomorrow's race to see what we can do."

Valtteri Bottas: We got the most out of the car this afternoon. Things were very close between me and Pastor, but we don’t have the pace at the moment to progress any further. The track temperatures are higher and it’s a bit windier today which meant that every tenth or hundredth counted, resulting in a very close session. We need to keep pushing and do what we can in the race tomorrow.

Pastor Maldonado: We were expecting something a bit better today, but the car is very tricky to drive on a track like this. We need to keep working hard to solve the problems we have identified with the car and move further up the grid. It’s going to be a tough race tomorrow as the slow corners do not suit our car, but we’ll do everything we can to score some points.

Williams F1 Team