Williams were reasonably pleased with their Qualifying Performance after overcoming a number of issues from Saturday Morning Practice. As well as being caught out in traffic, both drivers experienced tyre issues in the third practice session, which prevented the team from showing the same level of pace that it had done on Friday.
Despite having to adopt a conservative strategy for tomorrow’s race, Nico Rosberg was able to claim 9th on the grid, whole team mate Kazuki Nakajima just missed out of the top ten shoot out in 11th.
Nico Rosberg – 9th: “I must say I am very pleased with today’s result because we weren’t looking good this morning. In qualifying, we struggled to get the tyres to work because the temperatures were only just about right. The tyres weren’t perfect on the first lap, but then they came together on the second. I managed to hook up a strong lap in Q2 which put me as high as P7, but I then didn’t have any tyres left for Q3. We did the best we could and we can be happy with the fifth row. We have a strong strategy so we have a good chance for the race tomorrow.”
Kazuki Nakajima – 11th: “My effort is a little bit disappointing. I felt comfortable throughout the session but I then lost time towards the end of my quick lap. The car felt really good too so I need to look over my data and see why I was losing that time. I think we can still have a decent race; in fact, I need to after the last few that haven’t gone well for me. Points will definitely be a target for me tomorrow.”
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: “We had a difficult morning in practice, mainly caused by traffic problems, but we also struggled with the tyres. In qualifying, Nico secured a good time in Q2 to enter Q3 and then take ninth. Kazuki unfortunately just missed out on Q3 but P11 is a good position to start from. Because we’d used all of our new tyres, we decided to take a more conservative direction with race strategy so we won’t be threatening the front runners in the early laps of the race.”
