Belgian GP: Williams qualifying report

The AT&T Williams team struggled with performance today at the Spa Francorchamps circuit, especially across the twisty, eleven corner sector two from Les Combes to Fagnes and, as a consequence, failed to make the desired impression on the qualifying standings for tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg progressed into Q2, but was 6/10ths short of making into the final session, while team-mate Kazuki Nakajima could fare no better than P19. The outcome, however, leaves both cars with the benefit of a free fuel strategy for tomorrow's race.

Nico Rosberg:

I didn't really expect us to struggle so much in qualifying today. While we knew that Spa was not going to be our best track, being this far back is unexpected and very disappointing. In one respect, my car was okay from a balance perspective, but there was a serious lack of grip which meant I couldn't go any faster. Obviously looking ahead to the race tomorrow, some rain would give me a small chance to achieve something, otherwise it's going to be very difficult.

Kazuki Nakajima:

I felt our car was better in practice this morning despite the fact that the dry conditions for qualifying made the circuit better this afternoon, but when we got into the qualifying session, I just couldn't find any grip and I am still not able to understand why. It's going to be a long race tomorrow and starting 19th will make things more difficult.

Sam Michael, Director of Engineering:

It was obviously a disappointing session for Nico not to make it through to final qualifying and for Kazuki not to progress into Q2. Nico got the best out of the car and he was competitive in sector one and sector three, but he couldn't improve in sector two which is where our weakness lies. We did expect that Spa would be one of our difficult tracks. From here we will work on strategy to, as always, keeping pushing and see if we can get into the points tomorrow.

-credit: williams