Driver: Felipe Massa
Chassis / Engine: FW36-03 / PU106A Hybrid
Location: Bahrain International Circuit 5.412km
Objectives: Aero evaluations, set-up work and qualifying simulation
Weather: Hot and Sunny
Maximum air & track temps: 29ºC / 37ºC
Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: Having covered most of the bases in terms of reliability, we concentrated more on performance today as we had planned to do. As we don’t get the opportunity to test very much on a race weekend, we really look to do some significant tests when we have the tyres available to do so and we did some pretty positive tests today to continue learning about the car. This afternoon we did a full qualifying simulation with Felipe and we are pleased with how that turned out, so it’s been a good day for us.
Felipe Massa: We had a very good day today doing almost 100 laps. We did a lot more performance work in the car which is something that we haven’t done so much of so far. I’m really happy with the car and feel we found a good balance. We did so much work on the set-up but it is very important that we go to Australia prepared. Of course you are always happy when you see your name at the top in first place, but as well as performance, today was good for the mileage and reliability of the car which we know is needed for Australia. You can never be sure that you are 100% ready for the first race, but I feel that what we have done in these days testing has been important for making sure that we have a car that can not only get to the end of the race, but that will have good performance as well.
Williams will be back on track tomorrow, Sunday 2 March, with Valtteri Bottas in the Williams Mercedes FW36 for the fourth and final day of the test.
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