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Williams bemoan poor Grand Prix display

A very dissatisfied Nico Rosberg could only manage 9th place in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Although the German made a strong start to the race, he was quickly dwarfed by the KERS cars and struggled to keep up with their pace.

His Japanese team mate, Kazuki Nakajima, suffered an even poorer race. After damaging his front wing on the second lap, Nakajima eventually retired with fading oil pressure.

Technical Director, Sam Michael, rued the fact that Rosberg could not capitalise on his aggressive strategy during the race, and now hopes that the team can have a better race weekend next time out in Spain.

Nico Rosberg – 9th: “It was not so good today. I was on the limit and really got the best out of it, but we were simply not quick enough. I lost so many places at the start because all of the KERS cars came flying past me, which was really shocking because I had a very good start.

“This is just where we are at the moment so we need to push hard to improve and catch up with the others in front. Just like everyone else, we will have some new parts ready for Barcelona and I hope our package will be competitive.”

Kazuki Nakajima – retired: “It’s was a disappointing race for me. My start was average but it was very difficult to defend against the cars around me that had KERS. It was then very close going into the first corner on the second lap and I damaged my front wing so I had to pit early. I came out at the back of the field and from there I couldn’t make up any ground.

“In the end, my oil pressure was spiking so we took the decision to retire the car. The one positive thing is that the car felt good so we will hopefully do better at the next race.”

Sam Michael, technical director: “In Nico’s case, we started ninth and finish ninth so we didn’t manage to capitalise on the strategy that we had. He had a good start, but he then lost positions going into Turn 1 so we’ll have to look and see what happened there. He then spent the stints where we needed clean air behind traffic.

“Kazuki had an accident on lap two going into Turn 1 and that was it for his race. We’ll now look ahead to a better performance in Barcelona.”

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