Williams opt for conservative race strategy due to tyres
In today’s qualifying session for round five of the championship, the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, AT&T Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima missed out on a place in Q3 by the narrowest of margins yet achieved the best qualifying result of his season so far and will line up for tomorrow’s race in P11 with the benefit of a flexible strategy. Nico Rosberg once again made it into the top ten shoot out and will start Europe’s opening round on the clean side of the grid in 9th place.
Nico Rosberg: "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: "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."
