Singapore GP: Williams qualifying report

On a highly technical and physically demanding track, the AT&T Williams team scored a season-first by qualifying both cars in the top ten. Having shown strongly since taking to the new Singapore Marina Bay circuit, Nico Rosberg qualified in P9, with his team-mate Kazuki Nakajima making his first career appearance in the final qualifying session. He will start tomorrow night's race from tenth place.

Nico Rosberg:

I am generally quite happy as it was quite a good qualifying for me, even though after progressing to Q2, I did hope for a little more than 9th place. Nevertheless, it's good for the team to have both cars in the top ten and it will help us get into a position to score points. Even though we might not see too much overtaking, whatever happens tomorrow, I think it's going to be an exciting race -- the start through turn one, the battle during the pit-stops and the visual spectacle of all the cars racing through the night is going to be stunning.

Kazuki Nakajima:

It was a great qualifying session for me today. Over the course of the season, I have missed out on Q3 many times by a very small margin, so it was great to make it into the top ten. After the first two sessions, qualifying with extra fuel for the first time was difficult, let alone the usual issues with traffic and just having one chance to get it right. The team gave me a very good car and we have been very competitive here in all the sessions, so we just need to make a good start tomorrow and maintain our competitiveness to the end.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:

It was good to get both cars through to Q3 and congratulations to Kazuki on his first top ten qualifying result. We expected to be a bit stronger in the final session, but we will see how tomorrow's race materialises. We have had no problems on the cars today.

-credit: williams