After a trying first season in the sport in 2011, money-providing Williams driver Pastor Maldonado believes that he and the Grove-based team are now in a position to have a much better 2012 Formula One season.
Williams endured their worst-ever Formula One campaign in 2011, scoring just five points throughout the season to finish ninth in the constructors championship.Maldonado himself scored only a single point in his first campaign in the sport, suffering a difficult rookie campaign.
But with Williams having made sweeping changes to their technical side ahead of the new season, Maldonado said that he is still confident of a better 2012 season.
"I trust the team that the car we have made will be much more competitive than we had last season," the Venezuelan driver grinned at the EFE news agency this week.
He added that: "[2011 was] very difficult, particularly as a rookie.
"[But] it was an unique experience and a very important one in my sporting life, and I believe also in all of the sporting life of Venezuela."
Maldonado was the first Venezuelan driver in the sport for 27 years in 2011, since Johnny Cecotto's part-season for Toleman in 1984.
He will continue with the Grove team in 2012, partly thanks to his significant financial backing from the Venezuelan PDVSA oil company.
Maldonado will be paired with Bruno Senna for the 2012 season, the Brazilian having been confirmed in the seat earlier this week.
After the signing, new Williams technical bod Mark Gillan said that he was also confident of the team making progress with their performance in this coming season.
"Obviously it will be a quite a significant improvement in performance but that is our goal and I am reasonably confident looking forward that we will achieve that goal," he said during a teleconference.
"We want to be consistently in the top ten, going through to Q3 and consistently scoring points. I am confident we can achieve that goal."
He added: "The overall development of the car is going well and on plan.
"The car build has started and the processes has dramatically changed from last season to make sure we capture faults along the way as quickly as possible and not have as many issues as last season.
"Generally, the performance trend looks encouraging and the processes on the design side have dramatically changed."
The team has not yet announced a launch date for their new FW34 car, though they are expected to attend the first pre-season test of the year in Jerez next month.
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