BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING
Having enjoyed relative competitiveness at the Sakhir circuit
in the past, the AT&T Williams team was able to make a
positive step forwards from its qualifying performance at
the last race in Malaysia, although the team was only able
to get one car through to Q3, leaving further room for improvement.
Nico will start tomorrow’s race from the fourth row
of the grid, with Kazuki starting in sixteenth position, with
much intrigue surrounding the relative pace, fuel strategy
and tyre plans across the field.
Nico Rosberg:
I am happy because we are back where we expected
to be at the moment, which is behind the top three teams,
so 8th position is more or less the best we can do. It would
have been nice to be ahead of Jarno Trulli, but he was a little
bit quicker than me overall. We have a good race car, possibly
stronger than our qualifying car, so I think we are in a good
position for the race and strategy is also on target. It’s
definitely all going in the right direction.
Kazuki Nakajima:
It was not a great qualifying session for me today. I made
it into Q2 which was okay, but I wasn’t able to get
the most out of the car or the tyres, which cost me quite
a lot. Here at least it is a circuit where overtaking is possible,
which will be important tomorrow considering from where I
am starting the race.
Sam Michael, Technical Director:
We had a better qualifying session than in Malaysia, but it
was still a bit disappointing after the pace we showed in
practice, but tomorrow will be an interesting race, especially
with everyone managing tyre degradation. Nico is in a good
position from where he can score points. Kazuki didn’t
qualify so well which makes his race difficult tomorrow, but
he has shown that he can fight strongly and we expect to see
that in the race. We’ll look at any fine tuning we can
do for the race overnight.
SAKHIR, BAHRAIN
5.412 KMS / 3.363 MILES
WEATHER Clear, sunny
AIR 28-300C, TRACK 38-460C
QUAL DRIVER TEAM Q1 Q2 Q3
1 R Kubica BMW Sauber - - 1:33.096
2 F Massa Ferrari - - 1:33.123
3 L Hamilton McLaren - - 1:33.292
8 N Rosberg FW30 03–H293 AT&T WILLIAMS 1:32.903
(8th) 1:32.185 (8th) 1:34.015
16 K Nakajima FW30 04-H294 AT&T WILLIAMS 1:33.386 (15th)
1:32.943 -
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