British GP: Williams qualifying report

The AT&T Williams team capitalised on an intense two days of practice validating a significant package of car upgrades with a strong performance from Rubens Barrichello who will start tomorrow's race from P8. Rubens' team-mate, Nico Hulkenberg, had a more coloured session this afternoon, struggling with car performance and unfortunately baulked on his final pair of timed laps at the end of Q2. Without a clean run on option tyres, he could do no better than 13th.

Rubens Barrichello:
Top eight in qualifying is a good effort by the team. We still have to improve but today's result is satisfying and probably the best we could hope for. I hope we can get into the top six tomorrow. The cars are all very close, and there aren't too many overtaking opportunities around the lap, so it's going to be a good battle. The upgrades are all working well, but they need more development if we are to move higher up the field.

Nico Hulkenberg:
Traffic really destroyed qualifying for me today. As I was going into the first corner on a quick lap in Q2, Liuzzi exited the pitlane under blue flags but didn't move out of my way. That ruined my lap from the outset as I couldn't get past him. I also struggled with the car today. I don't know why and I'll be looking into that with my engineers now.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
That was a good qualifying by Rubens. It was a shame that Nico didn't go through to Q3. All the new parts have improved the cars' pace but, as usual, we need to keep working hard on the whole car package. Our focus is now on the race and scoring points tomorrow.

-source: williams