Williams thankful to rivals for help with garage fire in Spain

A major fire broke out in the garage shortly after a team photo was taken in celebration of the first Williams victory since 2004.

But prompt action from crew members from nearby teams, including Force India and Caterham, ensured that the damage was limited.

"On behalf of Williams, I'd like to thank all of the team members from other teams for their helped during the fire," Gillan told AUTOSPORT. "We were overwhelmed by the support. It was really impressive.

"Williams would like to say thanks to the teams, the FIA, FOM and all of those who came to help. It was a serious issue and I am very grateful indeed.

"What happened after a great result is very disappointing, but things were limited by the fast response of our team and everyone who helped."

Gillan confirmed that Williams has lost a large amount of equipment in the fire. But despite this he has no doubts that the team will be fully operational in time for next week's Monaco Grand Prix both in terms of equipment and crew.

"We had a lot of damage and we have lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment," said Gillan. "Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.

"We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don't carry a complete set of spares for everything."

Initial inspections of Bruno Senna's car, which was in the garage when the fire erupted as it had not finished the race, suggest that the chassis is undamaged.

However, Williams will not be certain of that until it has examined the car more closely back at its Grove base.