Nico Hulkenberg was relieved to reach Q3, after Williams found itself immersed in a tight battle between Renault and Pedro de la Rosa’s Sauber.
The German will start tomorrow’s race from tenth, two places ahead of team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who failed to make Q2 after experiencing a number of issues on his final flying run.
Nico Hulkenberg – 10th: Reaching Q3 was good today as everybody is very aware how closely bunched the field is behind the front few teams, but as always, it is human nature to feel that more could have been possible. The Renaults and De La Rosa were strong today with just a couple of tenths between us all. Although overtaking will be challenging tomorrow, we know that the race is going to be highly competitive with the form of the cars around us.
Rubens Barrichello – 12th: In Q1, I was very happy, the car was perfect and I only needed one run and was quite comfortable to see the rest of the session out in the garage. Then going into Q2, I had a lot of traffic on my out lap and basically because the lap was so slow, I don’t think the tyre got up to operating temperature. The tyres were just not there, and the car balance was out and by the last run, the tyres had given up.
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: It is a long race ahead tomorrow and we will need better starts than at Hockenheim, as well as good first laps. Both tyres look stable but I think most of the front teams will run similar strategies.
