It was not a great Friday for Williams, who joined Caterham, Marussia and HRT at the bottom of the Chinese timesheets...
Williams:
Pastor Maldonado: "It was a bit difficult this morning with the track conditions. We need to improve our qualifying set-up and I will work through that with my engineers this evening. We will make some changes overnight but the car is looking stronger for the race. "
Bruno Senna: "It was a productive P2 for us. I don't know the circuit particularly well so it is a steep learning curve, but I'm learning all the time and we'll have some further improvements tomorrow."
Caterham:
Heikki Kovalainen: "A bit of a tricky day and one where I'm not sure how much we've learnt. The conditions this morning meant we didn't learn too much, even though it was good to get some mileage on the inters, and this afternoon I had a few issues trying to find decent grip but we can work on that tonight. I'm pretty certain we can find quite a lot more from the whole package for tomorrow so let's see where we find ourselves when it gets serious on Saturday afternoon."
Vitaly Petrov: "I had a slightly interrupted session this afternoon with maybe one run lost to an alteration to the front suspension early in the session, but despite that I'm reasonably pleased with how the rest of FP2 went. Tyre degradation doesn't look too bad on either compound and I think we can find more time with some changes to the mechanical grip, so with some hard work tonight I think we can be ok for tomorrow and the race on Sunday."
Marussia:
Timo Glock: "In general a positive day of progress with the car and I was happy with my pace and the way the car was working. Unfortunately we have experienced a problem which points towards an operational issue. While this is disappointing, we can at least be sure that this was not a car issue of any kind. In fact, the package, including the new developments, seems quite promising and I was happy with the good balance. There is damage to the car, as you might expect from the impact, but it is mainly cosmetic and the chassis is fine. A long night for the mechanics I think, so a frustrating outcome all round to an otherwise trouble-free day. Personally I am fine. Initially I had some pain in my hand from the steering wheel when I hit the wall but no lasting damage."
Charles Pic: "The day started with very tricky conditions in the wet, but we managed to complete our full aerodynamic programme which was important for us. This afternoon we did race simulation work and put the Pirelli Soft option tyre on at the end of the day. Overall it has been a positive result. This is a new circuit for me and Timo's position demonstrates that there is more to come, so that will be the target for me tomorrow."
HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: "The day started with a strange morning session as a result of the weather conditions, but it was the same for everyone. However, the afternoon session went well where we were able to try out various set-up options and adjustments that enabled us to improve the balance of the car both with medium and soft tyres. We were able to complete the scheduled programme but tomorrow we should progress a bit. We definitely felt an improvement with respect to the Malaysian Grand Prix and the team is also working better together, but we still have a lot of work to do."
Narain Karthikeyan: "The weather wasn't favourable for us in free practice one and it meant that we didn't get any proper running done. I had a few problems in the morning session but the afternoon, where we tried a few different adjustments, was fine. We have a few things to look at tomorrow, especially on the braking side, but apart from that everything went well. We have to improve and we will do that. Tomorrow's practice three will be more representative of where we are."
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