Mixed fortunes for Williams duo

Nico Rosberg enjoyed a strong qualifying for his home Grand Prix today and will start tomorrow’s race from the third row on the grid in sixth place. During his debut qualifying session on the streets of Monte Carlo, Kazuki Nakajima earned a place in Q2, but was unable to progress into the final round and will line up on the grid in fourteenth position. With an unsettled forecast on the cards, Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix has the potential to yield a lottery of a result.

Nico Rosberg: "I am very happy, I got the most out of the car and this is a good result. I really enjoyed it out there today. It was good fun and I was really pushing it to the limit - I imagine it would be pretty exciting to watch my on-board camera footage because I was really attacking every bit of the lap. Qualifying in Monaco is different to anywhere else and being able to get to the limit here is just great. If it rains tomorrow it will be madness, so I’ll just have to be very careful and keep it on the track. With a good strategy, I can have a good Monaco Grand Prix."

Kazuki Nakajima: "It was a difficult qualifying for me because I was having trouble hooking everything up on my quick laps. I made some mistakes on one of my clean laps, so I need to go away and think about that and see how I can improve. Nico did really well today. He set a really good lap time, so I think I should have been better. Conditions were slightly different out there this afternoon in comparison to this morning’s practice session, and the forecast isn’t settled for the race, which could make it interesting."

Sam Michael, Technical Director: "It was a good qualifying session for Nico and he’s in a good place for tomorrow’s race. It was a shame for Kazuki that he didn’t get through to Q3, but he did a good job considering this is his first time round Monaco in a Formula One car. He’ll have to keep his head down tomorrow but, if it’s a wet race, anything can happen. We had no reliability issues today."