Pastor Maldonado downcast over new car

Pastor Maldonado admitted he was disappointed after the first day of practice in Melbourne and was also surprised at the lack of pace of his and team-mate Valtteri Bottas' Williams.

"I think we are far away from the top guys today," Maldonado told Autosport. "We need to work very hard, try to understand our problems. The thing is they are clear … we just need to work very hard to solve it and that is it.

"We are a bit surprised by the performance here. But this is not the end; we need to work and that is it. We need to analyze why we are that slow."

He also refused to be drawn into what he felt was achievable on Sunday. "We don't know … [it's] really bad."

He went on to say that the real state of the Williams set-up would only be known after qualifying and the first race. "In the tests you never know against the others. I was never convinced and nobody is convinced until you get to race," he said. "It seems to be we are losing something against them and we need to see again in qualifying and try and find the problems."