Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
Williams stole some headlines on the last day of preseason testing before Melbourne, as Kazuki Nakajima set the best ever time for a 2009-spec car at Jerez on Thursday.
Having occupied the lower rungs of the timesheets for much of the winter, with only occasional flashes of pace, Nakajima lapped in 1m17.494s early on Thursday, eclipsing Jenson Button's 1m17.844s set on Tuesday, albeit with the benefit of more rubber laid down from an additional two days of running. The Japanese driver eventually completed 102 laps, and will gear up for Melbourne confident about the car's reliability, if not its ultimate pace.
“Firstly, I think we’ve had a successful run of winter testing" said Nakajima. "We’ve managed to put a lot of mileage on the car, mainly because we haven’t experienced any reliability issues. The team have done a lot of work on the car throughout this process and it’s looking quite good, but we will have to wait to see where everyone really is. I’m really excited about going to Australia and can’t wait to get there now."
Williams technical director Sam Michael added "“Kazuki was back in the cockpit today working through last minute reliability and performance items that required sign-off for Melbourne. We have put over 8,000kms on the FW31 in the last two months and, while there are always areas that require attention, reliability has been good. We’ve also been working hard with Toyota to achieve good reliability on the engine’s working range, which has been subject to a reduction in revs but an increase in mileage. Considering the time we’ve had to do this, the work has gone well."
While neither Nakajima nor Michael were willing to speculate on the pace of the Williams relative to its competitors, Nico Rosberg, who did not run on Thursday, said "I think that we are probably in a strong mid-field position, but we will have to wait until Melbourne to be certain."
The only other car on track during Thursday's session was Heikki Kovalainen, whose Mclaren MP4-24 also dipped under the 78-second mark for the first time, stopping the clock in 1m17.946s in a run of 84 laps, missing Button's previous best by 0.102s.
Thursday was the final test for the foreseeable future, as in-season testing is banned in 2009.
