Formula 1 News

2008 Malaysian GP, Qualifying: disappointing session for Williams 

Nico Rosberg: “Can’t believe how it went today. I came here from a podium finish a few days ago and now I qualify 16th, although I felt my last flying lap was pretty good. Our car doesn’t seem to like the new asphalt they laid on this track at all. It’s just too smooth and it doesn’t make our tyres work properly, so I am just sliding everywhere. It will be tough tomorrow starting from this position, but our car should be better in racing conditions. And maybe some rain might help us!”

Kazuki Nakajima: “It was a difficult qualifying and because it was tight on lap times, when I made one mistake, it stopped me progressing into Q2. I have a grid penalty for tomorrow in any case, so I want to have a consistent race and make sure I finish. As far as performance is concerned, we will look at a strategy plan to see what we can do, but it will be a tough race.”

Sam Michael, Technical Director: “It was obviously a disappointing qualifying today. This morning we had a bad run on Nico’s car in practice with a hydraulic leak which cost us some set-up time, but even so it would be difficult to see how we could have made it into the top ten and our qualifying performance needs improvement. We’ll now look to strategy and put together the best race plan we can to get the cars into the points.”

source: AT&T Williams