Australian GP: Williams qualifying report

Rubens Barrichello improved upon his Bahrain qualifying performance at Australia's Albert Park street circuit today as he eased into Q3 and drove his FW32 to P8 in the top ten shoot out. Nico Hulkenberg's efforts were somewhat thwarted by traffic during his debut qualifying session for the Australian Grand Prix leaving him to line up in 15th place on the grid for tomorrow's race.

Rubens Barrichello:
Qualifying went quite well for me and I'm happy with the way things went. We went through Q1 and then I put a good lap in during Q2. I was pleased with my lap in Q3 but there was a bit more there which we missed out on due to traffic. I think we can achieve a better result tomorrow than we did in Bahrain. Eighth is a nice result, but I know everyone in the team aims a lot higher. I'm sure we will get there, but right now that is the limit of the car.

Nico Hulkenberg:
I'm disappointed with qualifying and expected more. The target was obviously to get into the top ten, but I didn't get the lap together and this is the result. This is my first qualifying here; it's not an easy circuit to learn and it's very narrow and quite bumpy. It will be difficult to get into the points tomorrow from P15, but you never know what could happen if the weather turns.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
That was a good effort from Rubens today to qualify in P8, even if he lost time in traffic on his fastest lap. We only had enough tyres for one run in Q3 and decided to send Rubens out early to avoid any potential rain. Nico struggled to manage the traffic during Q2 so he wasn't able to put in an ultimate lap. We're looking forward to a strong race tomorrow, regardless of the weather.

-source: williams