Pastor Maldonado said that the FW34 is "progressing well" after setting the fastest time of the third day of the second pre-season test.

13534 - Williams progressing well - Maldonado

Bruno Senna and Valtteri Bottas ran the car on the first two days, making Thursday Maldonado's first day in the car this week. Along with setting the fastest time of the test so far during the morning session, Maldonado was able to complete 106 laps and he said that the data gathered would allow the team to make further improvements to the car.

"We've improved a lot," Maldonado said."The car is getting better and better every day, especially because we didn't have any issues in the car. So as you see we are always doing more than 100 laps every day which is very positive for the factory to have many laps to analyse and see the data. So I'm pretty happy.

"The car looks competitive; much better than last year's car for sure. Everything is working - engine, gearbox, aero of the car, mechanically - so, it's not a perfect car; it's still early and we have lots of things to improve but I'm very happy. The car is quick, we need to still analyse a little bit more to develop the car but this is a good point to start."

After Bruno Senna claimed that Williams needed to improve the car in slow speed corners, Maldonado said that imminent updates should strengthen the car's all round performance.

"We have a good improvement in the aero department, so hopefully it's going to improve in every single corner in the track and even the [top ]speed. We will see, I'm pretty confident."

When asked what his target would be for the coming season, Maldonado was confident enough to aim higher than just scoring points.

"For sure to be in the points from the beginning and to get better and better during the year. Why not some podiums?"