Maldonado: It's going to be a competitive weekend

Pastor Maldonado said his car was 'feeling really good' following practice on Thursday for this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.

Maldonado, who of course won the last race in Spain, was fifth quickest in both sessions yesterday in his Williams and he ended up seventh in the combined times, his best effort a 1 minute 16.760 seconds.

"The car is feeling really good this year and looks competitive in the running we have done today, so we're happy with that," confirmed the Venezuelan. "It's a shame we didn't get to run as much during the afternoon, as we would have liked to have gathered a bit more data on the tyres but we still have P3 on Saturday. I love this circuit and think it's going to be a competitive Grand Prix."

Team-mate Bruno Senna meanwhile was also upbeat, even if he was only 17th in FP1 and 13th in FP2.

"It was great to be able to do both sessions today as it meant that we could learn bit by bit. It's been quite a few years since I drove something competitive here so it was good to have extra time to remember the track," he commented.

"We're chipping away and the afternoon session was hampered by the rain, but every little helps."

"This morning we had a productive session with both drivers successfully working through their test programmes, but unfortunately the wet second session in the afternoon proved more problematic and limited useful running," summarised Mark Gillan, Williams' chief operations engineer.

"Both drivers were happier with the car balance in the second session but we still have quite a bit more to do in preparation for Sunday."