I for one couldn’t wait to see how the Williams team would fair in Bahrain at the weekend after their impressive pre-season testing but I came away feeling disappointed.

Williams looked to have a quick car and a great combination of drivers in Rubens Barrichello and last year’s GP2 champion Nico Hulkenberg, but I think the car isn’t as good as Williams thought.

Williams had the raw pace last year as Nico Rosberg would regularly top the time sheets in practice and then produce the goods in qualifying by being right at the front of the grid.

Barrichello and ‘The Hulk’ didn’t produce it in qualifying on Saturday. They were 11th and 13th respectively. Williams wanted to move forward this season and produce their stunning pace into points but judging by Bahrain then it looks as though they have gone backwards.

Qualifying was nothing more than very average and this left them playing catch up due to their worryingly lack of pace.

Barrichello used all his experience and nouse to guide his blue and white machine to tenth and come away from Bahrain with a solitary point. It might not seem that impressive on the surface but a lesser and more inexperienced wouldn’t have had the patience and know how to produce a drive like Rubens did.

Hulkenberg did all he could with his Williams but he was fighting a losing battle after qualifying 13th. The German had to take evasive action on turn two to avoid crashing while a few laps later on turn six he spun. This dropped him back a few places and wrecked his tyres. I thought Hulkenberg did well in finishing the race.

I was slightly riled though when Hulkenberg suggested “The long run pace has been good.” I’m sorry Nico but you finished over a lap behind race winner Fernando Alonso plus your fastest lap was over three seconds slower than the Spaniard’s.

Barrichello performed much better as his fastest lap was around 1.5 seconds faster than his team-mate’s and only slightly slower than Massa and Hamilton’s. It’s a shame that the Williams couldn’t keep up this pace right through the race.

A solitary point is simply not good enough to take away from the opening race of the season. Hulkenberg showed great space at certain stages in practice while Barrichello did get produce  some pace out of his car in the actual race but this was as good as it got for Frank Williams team.

We might only be one race through the season but the Williams lack of general pace through the whole race weekend will need to be addressed if Barrichello and Hulkenberg are going to be contenders for points places in Melbourne next weekend.

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