Race report

Williams finished as started in Austin, ninth and tenth

Pastor Maldonado, Williams

Photo by: xpb.cc

It was another double points finish for the Williams F1 Team with Pastor Maldonado finishing ninth and Bruno Senna tenth, collecting three points in total in the United States Grand Prix.

After dropping back to 15th in the early stages, Pastor pushed hard on a one-stop strategy to make his way back through the field and catch Bruno to take P9. Bruno drove well fighting his way up to eighth before his only pitstop of the race, but on rejoining was held up behind Hulkenberg who defended well to keep Bruno behind allowing Pastor to catch them both.

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: Both drivers didn't have the best of starts. Whilst Pastor managed to maintain position on the clean side of the grid he was eventually pushed wide by Massa at Turn 2, which meant that he picked up a lot of dirt on his option tyres which subsequently took a long time to clean up.

Both drivers drove very good races but unfortunately we were not able to clear Hulkenberg. It’s good to have both cars in the points but ultimately we wanted more. We now concentrate all our efforts on the final race of the season.

Pastor Maldonado: After today's race I'm happy for the team, for the Venezuelan fans and for myself. I hope that this will be one of the best racing venues for Formula One.

On the first lap I ran wide which meant I had to fight for places throughout but I enjoyed it because it was a good race and we were competitive.

At the beginning I lost many places but I managed to recover quite well. On the last lap I was fighting with Hulkenburg but there wasn't enough time to get the place. I am looking forward to the last round in Brazil and we are ready to fight again there.

Bruno Senna: Unfortunately starting on the dirty side of the grid hurt my race in the early stages as it was quite messy into the first corner. We had good pace though and were overtaking when we needed to.

Unfortunately we came out of the pits behind Hulkenberg which was frustrating as he was just quick enough exiting Turn 11 each lap and we couldn’t overtake him which damaged my tyres allowing Pastor to catch us both.

I knew Pastor would make a move and I wasn’t going to close the door as we needed the points for the team. Overall, it was a pretty difficult race but it was good to end with both cars in the points which is what we are aiming for.

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader: We started ninth and tenth and finished in ninth and tenth so we can consider that a good result.

After a difficult first lap both drivers drove very well, having a very clean fight and the pace of the car when in clear air was good. A double points finish for the second consecutive race is very positive and we look forward to extending this run further in Brazil.

Williams F1 Team