Senna: We will get stronger

Bruno Senna has admitted that while the mixed conditions that saw him take a career-best finish of sixth in Malaysia suit his team at the moment, Williams will be able to compete for points in all conditions as the FW34 is developed during the season.

“For sure in the early part of the season it’s best when you have more mixed conditions,” said Senna, reflecting on his performance at the Sepang circuit recently. “I’m still learning the team, learning the car, learning the tyres. I only came into the season quite late last year and quite a few things have changed as well. All this settling period takes a few races, so I hope I can get them out of the way as quickly as possible but for sure a few races like this would increase the chance of a good result for us but later in the season the drier the race the better.”

Senna’s sixth place in Sepang came after a first-lap accident that saw him require a nose change on his car, but strong pace in the wet following the restart saw him take eight points and the Brazilian the pace shown by the FW34 bodes well for the rest of the season. “It was a great race. We had strong pace and a pretty good strategy as well, even though we had an accident on the first lap, which could in theory have influenced our race result badly,” he said. “Anyway, we had a strong race. I didn’t make any mistakes during the race, apart from the first lap, and that’s very encouraging. It shows the car has good performance in the dry and in the wet and we had both conditions in the race. I think it was a pretty good effort, not only from me but from the team as well. I’m not racing on my own.

“The team has done a great leap forward in terms of performance,” he added. “The changes that happened definitely made the team focus on the right areas and now it’s up to us, to me and Pastor, and also the engineers to keep the development rate as high, or higher than the guys we’re competing against to try and continue in the position we are.

“It’s tough. If it was easy everyone would do it but it’s the situation we’re in. We’re pushing very, very hard and for sure scoring points, especially big points as we did last race keeps everyone motivated.”