Rosberg upbeat ahead of qualifying after good Thursday

Under perfect Monegasque conditions, AT&T Williams closed free practice for the Monaco Grand Prix with both drivers inside the top ten today. On his home track, Nico Rosberg recorded the second fastest time of the day, just three tenths shy of first-placed driver, Lewis Hamilton. Team mate, Kazuki Nakajima, made his Formula One debut on the streets of Monte Carlo today and finished session two in ninth place.

Nico Rosberg: "First of all, it’s really nice to be driving here again because it’s just a really fun track. I was looking forward to this weekend because I thought we were going to have a good car here and it now looks like we’ve arrived with a good set-up. I was going well all day and felt comfortable in the car. I am also able to push quite hard so I’m hoping that I can keep it up do a good job in qualifying and then have a good race. We worked on a few set-up variants today. We didn’t finish the session using our optimum set-up, but we know where we need to go and we still have some reserves up our sleeves, so I am pretty happy with how things are looking."

Kazuki Nakajima: "It wasn’t an easy day for me, but I think we’ve made some improvements when it comes to understanding the car and I’m getting used to the track as well. Because of the free day tomorrow, we have lots of time to go through today’s data which will help us prepare for qualifying."

Sam Michael, Technical Director: "It was a reasonably productive day for the team. Both drivers completed their set programmes, and it was good to get through both sessions without any incidents. The weekend is still young so the drivers need to keep their concentration up round this track. In terms of tyre choice, it’s pretty clear which one is faster. In Monaco, we have an extra day in comparison to the normal schedule because there’s no running on Friday, so we have plenty of time to prepare the cars for qualifying and the race."