Williams preview the Japanese GP

Editor

A favourite for both Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna, Williams admit they need to work on their reliability at Suzuka…

A favourite for both Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna, Williams admit they need to work on their reliability at Suzuka…

For all the latest F1 odds on the Japanese Grand Prix, round 15 of the 2012 F1 Championship, visit Sky Bet.

Pastor Maldonado: I’m really looking forward to getting to Japan this week. I think everyone in the paddock looks forward to this race, as the fans in Japan are some of the best in the world and give us all such a warm welcome. I also enjoy the track as it’s one of the historic circuits in Formula One. There is a good combination of high speed corners and we run close to the maximum amount of downforce. It’s a great challenge as a driver.

Bruno Senna: I’m really looking forward to the Japanese Grand Prix. It’s one of my favourite tracks of the season andit’s very fast and flowing but quite narrow compared to some of the other circuits we visit. It feels amazingly quick and is one of the biggest challenges as a driver. It is similar to Spa-Francorchamps so it’s a real drivers’ track. You can get variable weather in Japan ranging from warm and sunny to rain that stops qualifying. It’s always exciting though and we have a good potential to be strong there.

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: Suzuka is a fantastic old-style track with its trademark figure-of-eight layout that proves a tough technical test for the drivers. The circuit layout leads to very high average cornering speeds and energy input into the tyres, but it’s reasonably light on the brakes. Following Singapore we have been working hard to ensure that the cars run as reliably as possible for the remaining races. Given the excellent pace shown at Singapore in both qualifying and the race, we expect to be strong in Suzuka and will bring further updates as part of our continuous improvement process.

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