Spanish GP: Williams has 'plan B' if car upgrades don't work
Pastor Maldonado insists that Williams has a 'plan B' should the major upgrade package it will trial in Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix not perform as expected
Williams has endured a poor start to the 2013 Formula 1 season and has yet to score a point heading into a race that it won last year.
But despite being confident that the new parts, which Williams has successfully tested during two days of straightline running at the Idiada facility in Spain since the Bahrain Grand Prix, will work, Maldonado does not see this upgrade as make or break for his campaign.
"It's still early," said Maldonado when asked by AUTOSPORT if he felt how Friday goes will define the course of the rest of the season for Williams.
"We need to improve the car but if it is not in this race, we still have some more races to do that.
"If everything works this time, we have the clear direction.
"If, for any reason, the car will not work we have a plan B, so let's see."
Maldonado is upbeat about the new aerodynamic package, which he hopes will make a car he has described as "undriveable" significantly more competitive.
He believes that the priority is for Williams to ensure that the correlation between what it is seeing in the windtunnel and how the car performs on track, which the team has made progress with, is as strong as possible.
"We have done a new aero kit for this race," said Maldonado.
"Hopefully, it should work and we have an extensive programme in terms of development for the car.
"What we have [for practice] is not everything for the car, we made a step and we need more steps.
"It's clear now we have done a real comparison between track and windtunnel and it's clear where the problems are."
While Maldonado has been critical of the car, he remains certain of its ultimate potential.
"The potential of the car is there, the pace of the car is [potentially relatively similar] to last year's car as there are not any big changes.
"We got lost for many reasons but we have good data, good drivers, a good team so there is no reason to be where we have been in the previous four races."
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About this article
| Series | Formula 1 |
| Drivers | Olivier Panis |
| Teams | Williams |
| Author | Edd Straw |
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