Williams boosted by Singapore pace despite points miss

Pastor Maldonado qualified in second position and raced strongly before he was forced to retire due to a hydraulic leak.

Team-mate Bruno Senna also looked set for a point-scoring finish before a suspected KERS issue made him stop right at the end of the race.

Despite the failure to score in Singapore, Gillan admitted seeing the car's pace was a big boost.

"It gives us a tremendous amount of confidence," he said. "We saw that the car was capable of qualifying on the front row and that the race pace was equally impressive.

"Both drivers did a very good job in the race, with Pastor fighting hard at the front and Bruno carving his way from the back into a points scoring position before having to retire the car."

Gillan admitted, however, that leaving without anything to show for the team's promise was disappointing.

"In brief it was an extremely frustrating weekend," he said.

"It was what I would call a character building weekend, with the high expectations following a front row qualification and fast race pace ultimately dashed due to a double DNF and a risky strategy call."

Gillian said the team was optimistic of solving the problems that hit their car during the weekend.

"As you say the car has been very reliable. We are currently investigating the failures and have full confidence in getting to the root cause quickly and implementing the required fixes as soon as possible.

"At this stage we do not believe that the heat played a part in the failures."