Malaysian GP: Williams qualifying report

The AT&T Williams team endured a tough qualifying session today that will see the team start tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix from P16 and P22. However, with the freedom to choose fuel loads for both cars, the team has a degree of opportunity to plan a strategy to make the best of difficult circumstances. In addition, the climatic conditions experienced in Australia and so far this weekend will put reliability into sharp focus as all cars have been working under high thermal loads for two races. With variable weather conditions in Sepang, the potential for a wet race remains real.

Nico Rosberg:

Can't believe how it went today. I came here from a podium finish a few days ago and now I qualify 16th , although I felt my last flying lap was pretty good. Our car doesn't seem to like the new asphalt they laid on this track at all. It's just too smooth and it doesn't make our tyres work properly, so I am just sliding everywhere. It will be tough tomorrow starting from this position, but our car should be better in racing conditions. And maybe some rain might help us!

Kazuki Nakajima:

It was a difficult qualifying and because it was tight on lap times, when I made one mistake, it stopped me progressing into Q2. I have a grid penalty for tomorrow in any case, so I want to have a consistent race and make sure I finish. As far as performance is concerned, we will look at a strategy plan to see what we can do, but it will be a tough race.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:

It was obviously a disappointing qualifying today. This morning we had a bad run on Nico's car in practice with a hydraulic leak which cost us some set-up time, but even so it would be difficult to see how we could have made it into the top ten and our qualifying performance needs improvement. We'll now look to strategy and put together the best race plan we can to get the cars into the points.

* Kazuki will take a ten place grid penalty due to an infringement during the last Grand Prix and will provisionally start in P22

-credit: williams