Australian GP: Williams qualifying report

The first indications of the 2009 form guide emerged today after the first competitive session of the new season at Albert Park in Melbourne. The two Brawn GP cars locked out the front row and Nico Rosberg kept the AT&T Williams team firmly in the ...

The first indications of the 2009 form guide emerged today after the first competitive session of the new season at Albert Park in Melbourne. The two Brawn GP cars locked out the front row and Nico Rosberg kept the AT&T Williams team firmly in the picture securing the fifth slot on the grid for tomorrow's race. Having shown positive form through the three practice sessions and into qualifying, an error on his final flying lap in Q2 meant that Kazuki Nakajima was unable to join Nico in the pole position shoot-out and he will line up in 13th place for tomorrow's evening start.

Nico Rosberg:
I think it is a good thing to be a bit disappointed with fifth place! Our qualifying session itself was consistent with everything else I have experienced so far and the car has been nice to drive all weekend. From the work we have done today, we are in a good position to start the race, perhaps better than we would have imagined when we arrived here. We are among the fastest cars but it will be interesting to see what fuel load everybody is running. The start tomorrow of course will be important, but thankfully we will don't have too many cars running KERS close by us and possibly challenging us off the line. The big factor tomorrow will be tyres, but I think we have a good strategy and positive reliability, so we have all the tools to do a good job in the race.

Kazuki Nakajima:
The car was good enough to make it into Q3 today, but I made a small mistake and it cost me quite a few places. There is however plenty to consider tomorrow and I think I still have a good opportunity, so it will be important to concentrate and get absolutely everything right. As it the first race I think there will be plenty going on, which will make it exciting, but challenging.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
We have had a solid start to our preparations for tomorrow's race. Both cars have performed reliably and we have managed to find a reasonable pace. Nico used this to best advantage today, but an error in Q2 meant that Kazuki was not able to progress into the top ten.