Williams drivers satisfied with qualifying
In extreme heat and humidity at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado pushed themselves to the limit during today’s qualifying session for Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix. The AT&T Williams pair cleared Q1 going on to conclude this evening’s session in Q2. Rubens set the 12th fastest time with Pastor just less than two tenths behind with the 13th.
Sam Michael, Technical Director:
Rubens and Pastor have secured good positions to start the race from and from where we can definitely target a points-scoring result tomorrow. Getting everything right on the set-up makes a big difference on a street circuit like this while managing tyre pressures throughout the session was also key. We didn’t have any technical issues in qualifying so we can concentrate fully on the race tomorrow.
Rubens Barrichello:
There are two ways of looking at that result. You can never be happy with 12th, but we pulled a good lap together and we should be satisfied by that. This is a great circuit, one I enjoy very much, but it’s quite tricky. The kerbs are a problem, as we saw with Kobayashi’s incident, so you have to be careful. There was also a lot of traffic out there so I tried going out early to get some clear air. You can extend the capabilities of yourself and your car here so I am pleased with what we’ve done so far.
Pastor Maldonado:
It was hard to get the tyres up to temperature today, especially the options, and that cost me time. At the end of Q2, we could have done with some more temperature in the front tyres but it was ok. I did a strong lap to get P13 and I am looking forward to a good race tomorrow and getting into the points.
