Nico Hulkenberg has admitted that Williams lack the pace of the front runners, after a disappointing Malaysian Grand Prix for the Grove-based team.
Although Hulkenberg finished tenth, this was little reward for his impressive efforts in qualifying.
The German’s sentiments were echoed by team-mate Rubens Barrichello who appeared to stall on the grid at the start and was therefore forced to settle for twelfth.
Nico Hulkenberg – 10th: We picked up a point today, maybe because our car was more reliable, but that’s racing. It was a tough race because we just don’t have the pace at the moment. I wish we could do better, but we have some work to do to catch up.
Rubens Barrichello – 12th: I don’t know what happened at the start, I’ll go through that with the team. From there I went to the back of the field. We tried a different strategy to get us back up, but our car was just not competitive. We lost a nice opportunity today.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: We had a difficult race this afternoon from which we’ve come away with one point. Both drivers struggled with the start; Rubens didn’t get enough drive and Nico had excessive wheel spin. We chose to pit Rubens early and put him on the harder tyre as he was being held up in traffic. Nico also had to pit early as we had an electrical problem on his steering wheel which was preventing us from changing the engine mixture. Our focus remains on improving our pace and starts.
