Chief operations engineer Mark Gillan says Williams has enjoyed "an excellent couple of weeks" during pre-season testing.

13564 - 'Excellent couple of weeks' for Williams

After a wretched 2011 season the team has been working hard to improve in 2012, with a new design team and management structure working on the FW34. The results so far have been promising, with Pastor Maldonado topping the timesheets on Thursday in Barcelona and completing over 100 laps on consecutive days.

Gillan said that Maldonado completed a "competitive race simulation" yesterday and was pleased with both the driver's performance and the data gathered by the team.

"We've had a really productive day's testing to end an excellent couple of weeks," Gillan said. "Pastor went through a competitive race simulation and both the car and he performed very well, ending the day with some long run comparisons.

"We have gathered a prodigious amount of data over more than 3500kms of testing and we will now regroup back at the factory to understand how to further improve the set-up and development direction ahead of the next Barcelona test."