Patrick Bruce Reith "Pat" Symondsis a British motor racing engineer. He is currently the Chief Technical Officer at Williams Grand Prix Engineering, having previously worked at the Benetton, Renault and Virgin Formula One teams... (wikipedia)
Were it not for the third cars, the Friday session would just be dire.
For sure he's going to be right up there. It's not that bad a penalty at a circuit like this. I think his main problem is that down in 11th place Turn One is going to be difficult for him. The guys around him are going to know that he's got a lot to lose, and they can lean on him.
He lost some 50 horsepower and in fact drove a really excellent race, but he was eventually halted by an hydraulic leak.
Last week we had a good balance with the cars and there were no specific problems, but despite this there was a difference of 0.08 seconds on Montoya's fast lap with similar fuel quantities. We don't know why, but the results for us weren't as good.
Those early races really set the scene for the year.
We should think more laterally and ask ourselves, do we need a Friday session?
We had a fantastic amount of success last season, but the one-two finish eluded us throughout 2005. It is the ultimate team prize, and we are delighted to have achieved it today.
We tried to get Fernando a lap of clean air to beat Michael in the pits and it didn't quite work.
Fernando looks a little further back on the grid than normal. However, we have managed our weekend with our main challengers in mind, and we feel that we have done the right thing to get the best possible result in tomorrow's race.
The team is in a very strong position now after three races, but there are still 15 to go. We have some important test sessions coming up in the next fortnight and we are still working hard to improve the performance of the car.
If you feel that you can get through a season with 10 sets of parts, but you make 20 just in case, that's wasteful - but if you make 12, that's a small insurance policy.
Certainly, the headline times produced at the end of every day probably have less relevance than anything else. We tend to concentrate more on the long-distance running people do, rather than the short runs.
I am not at all happy about it. It is very clear what you can or cannot do. There might be specific rules about specific parts, but there are also general rules and I know exactly what that wing does. And that is not what I would expect.