Indian GP: Williams declares its slump is over as form improves

Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna qualified ninth and 13th respectively for the Indian Grand Prix, but both made errors on their decisive laps, costing them as much as half a second.

Since Maldonado qualified second for the Singapore GP, Williams has managed no better than 12th in Japan and Korea and Gillan admitted after those races that the team had some problems to solve.

Williams has focused on front wing work and now appears to have conquered problems it had with balance and consistency.

"We're back on track, but we've still got a lot to do," said Gillan when asked by AUTOSPORT if he was confident that the issues had been solved.

"Sometimes you've got to come up against problems and it has been a good weekend for us.

"We've understood a lot this weekend and it has been a late couple of nights in terms of data analysis, but you can see from the pace of the car [that progress has been made]."

Gillan admitted that the Korean GP, where Williams never showed any hint of points-scoring pace, was the low point of the season.

Extensive work conducted during free practice in India, on top of efforts back at the factory, has allowed the team to recover.

"We came here knowing that we had a lot to do off the back of the disappointing Korea race, which was the first race, if you looked at all of the sessions, where nothing stood out," said Gillan.

"We did a lot of ground work at the factory and came here with a very detailed run programme for Friday. We've managed to get on top of a number of the issues."

Maldonado was also happy with progress and paid tribute to the team's effectiveness in troubleshooting after struggling for pace until qualifying in India.

He believes that the car's improved performance is validation of the Williams FW34's fundamental speed.

"We are so happy after several races without any improvement in qualifying," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT about the step made by the team.

"We've been working so hard to find the problems and we've fixed it, showing that we are strong on analysis and working together as a team.

"On Saturday morning, we were nowhere, but in Q1 we were fastest.

"We showed that the potential is still there. We never lost any potential, we just missed out."