Webber shines in Monaco
Mark Webber was the surprise of the day in Monaco. The Australian seemed invisible during the qualifying session, but was able to place his Williams 3rd on tomorrow's provisional grid. Team mate Nico Rosberg did well in front of his home crowd as he was 10th.
Sam Michael, Technical Director, WilliamsF1 “Mark did a fantastic job in qualifying and he will have a really strong race tomorrow. His last lap was almost two tenths faster before he had to back off to avoid Michael’s parked car so he would have been on the front row. Obviously it’s disappointing to have Nico in 10th position, he spent too much time in traffic. The car, tyre and engine performance is definitely strong here at Monaco. Our Bridgestone tyres are working well and we had no mechanical problems today.”
Mark Webber “Saturday has turned out to be a reasonable day for us. We qualified pretty well in 3rd position and I think we were maybe improving a little bit until we got the yellow flag due to Michael Schumacher’s stoppage, which of course hurt everybody. Anyway, the crucial thing for us is the race and we want to get to the end and get some of the points that I think we deserve. It’s been a strong effort from the team in the last few days. We now need to capitalise on this starting opportunity, at a track where qualifying is so important.”
Nico Rosberg “Q3 was not good for me today. I made it into the top ten and then traffic just prevented me from setting a faster lap. I was behind Coulthard when he was on a flying lap, but then he didn’t let me by when I was on my flying lap, and basically spoilt my qualifying. It’s a shame, because there was definitely more in the car today than a 10th place.” Chris
Jilbert, Principal Engineer – Cosworth, F1 Race Engineering “A fantastic qualifying result for Williams and Cosworth. It’s superb to have a Cosworth-powered car start from the second row of the grid here in Monaco and it is a great reward for a lot of very hard work from all involved.”
Frank Williams about Édouard Michelin: “WilliamsF1 has worked with the Michelin tyre company during two very successful periods in Édouard’s career. The relationship with Édouard Michelin himself developed in the year 2000 when he maintained a close interest with our team. He was a far-sighted born leader and extremely approachable. The WilliamsF1 Team offers their condolences to Édouard’s wife and children and to his entire family.”
