French GP: Williams race notes

Comments from the Williams team after the French Grand Prix

Sam Michael, Technical Director, WilliamsF1:

"We had problems with our tyres running over temperature. We didn't see any sign of it in practice so it caught us out in the race. We then had a wheel rim failure on Mark's car so we retired him early as he had too much damage. We will need to look into both of these issues to ensure they don't occur again."

"It was going to be hard for Nico to get in the points from the back of the grid and we then needed to bring him in for an unscheduled stop as a precautionary measure following the problems with Mark. Both cars had great starts and Mark defended well against Pedro de la Rosa."

Mark Webber: DNF

"Of course I'm massively disappointed because we could have scored a point here today. I was trying hard to stay with the quicker guys but we had some heat issues with the inside edge of the tyre and then the aerodynamics were affected as a result of the damage. We're making it very hard work for ourselves at the moment, everyone is working so hard but we don't have anything to show for it."

Nico Rosberg:

"It was very hard for me today, first of all because I started from the back and then because the car was very difficult to drive. I was doing one qualifying lap after another, and I was on the limit all the time, but I just couldn't drive any quicker."

"We were struggling with the tyres, and I was also unlucky with the pitstops. When we decided to stop for the first time, Button also pitted just in front of me and I lost some time there. We showed some progress in qualifying yesterday so it's a shame that the race went this way. I am now looking forward to Hockenheim, my home Grand Prix, in two weeks' time."

Simon Corbyn, Head of F1 Race Engineering, Cosworth Ltd:

"No Cosworth problems today for either Mark or Nico. Both CA2006 Series 6 engines will be good second event engines for Hockenheim."

-williams-