Williams failed to shine in the Australian Grand Prix, finishing at the back of the pack with Marussia and Caterham...
Williams:
Valtteri Bottas: "I had a good start from my grid position and it felt great to be back racing again. A small mistake a few laps in cost me some places though. We got the maximum performance we could from the car today and although the pace isn't there yet, there are still some positives to take away. The next race is only a week away, so we will work very hard to prepare as best we can and try to score our first points of the season."
Pastor Maldonado: "It was a disappointing end to a difficult weekend for myself and the team. The car was not responding as we hoped in the conditions today and unfortunately I lost the back end and ended up in the gravel. We need to work hard to solve the problems in the car to be ready for the next race in Malaysia."
Marussia:
Jules Bianchi: "These were very challenging conditions for my qualifying debut, especially as none of my limited pre-season testing experience with the team was in the wet. I can't deny it was disappointing - and a little daunting! Yesterday's dry running showed a lot of promise so it would have been nice to get a better feel for where we are in performance terms, but we just had to make the best of it. In the end though I am very happy with the job we did today and where we have ended up. Clearly we were not able to show our full potential and yet we ended up in the right place relative to the cars around us - both ahead of Caterham and close to the cars ahead. So I look forward to a return to dry conditions - which is what we hope to see tomorrow - and to my first Formula 1 grand prix. To be honest, whatever the weather brings, this is an exciting moment for me and one I have been looking forward to for a long time."
Max Chilton: "I'm pretty pleased with how today has gone when you look at the circumstances. I hadn't really expected to be sitting in the garage for 30 minutes seeing a river forming on the track outside when I'd contemplated my first F1 qualifying experience. With that in mind, I'm really encouraged with how we fared. With the conditions starting to clear a little in the dying minutes of the Q1 session I knew everything hinged on that final lap. We were improving in each sector so I knew we would be OK, it's just a little disappointing that my last lap was affected by the yellow flag. Now my thoughts turn to tomorrow and I can't wait, rain or shine."
Caterham:
Charles Pic: "That wasn't too bad a race for us. Of course we'd prefer to finish higher but I think that at this stage of the season this reflects our current performance levels. We started on the supersofts and our pace was ok for the first stint but the tyres dropped off very quickly. In contrast, when we went onto the mediums the degradation levels were very good so we were able to push the second stint much longer than we'd planned and that gave us a chance to fight. Unfortunately towards the end of the race we had a KERS failure which obviously cut our outright pace and prevented us from taking full advantage of the good tyre wear we saw on the primes. We know that it's going to be similar to this for the first few races, but with what we have coming it's going to be a really interesting season. We have quite a few small details we need to work on for the next race but it's good to have a real fight on our hands, good for the team and the fans so let's see how this progresses."
Giedo van der Garde: "For me that was a reasonable start to my F1 career. It was really important to finish my first race and that's exactly what I did so I'm pretty happy with how it ended up. I started the race on the supersofts, passed a few people in the first turn and was keeping up with Bianchi until the first pitstop, even with the deg levels on the option tyres. Unfortunately I had a slow puncture on the first set of mediums and that cost me time and position. We had to stop much earlier than planned to put a new set of mediums on and that meant a change to the strategy, but it's all good experience for me. I've said all through pre-season that the first races are a chance for me to learn and today was really good for that. I feel good physically and now we have a lot more information about tyre wear and how to manage that so we'll take that to next week's race Malaysia and see what we can do at our first home race of the season."
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