Two days after winning in Spain, Williams is scrambling to put together the equipment it needs to contest next weekend’s Monaco grand prix.<\/p>\n
Mere hours after Pastor Maldonado secured the once-great British team’s first victory since 2004, a huge fire broke out in the pits, leaving one team member still in a Barcelona hospital with burns.<\/p>\n
“His family are in constant communication and he is in good spirits,” Williams said in a media statement.<\/p>\n
The Oxfordshire based team is now making efforts to ensure it can race in Monte Carlo, having lost a lot of equipment in the fire.<\/p>\n
Mercifully, however, Bruno Senna’s car appears to have survived, with the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 saying an initial inspection of the chassis showed no devastating damage.<\/p>\n
Maldonado’s winning car was in parc ferme at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
“We had a lot of damage and lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment,” chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said, according to the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n
“Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.<\/p>\n
“We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don’t carry a complete set of spares for everything,” he said.<\/p>\n
It is believed more than one rival team has offered to help Williams by loaning the Sir Frank Williams-led outfit any equipment it needs.<\/p>\n
A McLaren spokesman confirmed the Woking based team has offered to help.<\/p>\n
Germany’s Bild newspaper said Williams’ damage bill runs into the millions.<\/p>\n
Team manager Dickie Stanford denied a rumour the fire was caused by a cigarette in the vicinity of Senna’s fuel tank while it was being emptied.<\/p>\n
“We don’t know the cause, but we would never allow smoking in the pits,” he insisted.<\/p>\n
Williams and F1’s governing FIA are investigating.<\/p>\n
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