| Reactions: French GP Qualifying |
| AT&T Williams did not fare well in Magny-Cours today during qualifying for Sunday’s French Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg made the cut into Q2, but was unable to convert into Q3 and closed his afternoon in P15. With a ten-place penalty, Nico will line up on the last row of the grid. Compromised by traffic on his last run, Kazuki Nakajima was forced out at the end of Q1 and will start tomorrow’s race in P16. |
Nico Rosberg: "I
knew it was going to be slightly hard for us here, but to be so far off
the pace is quite surprising. If everything had gone perfectly, I may
have been in P14, but that’s not good enough. We had to compromise our
pace this afternoon because of the grid penalty, but that should only
have cost us a tenth, not this much. We’ve had a good car in the last
two races, and have been running in the top six, but there are some
tracks, such as Magny-Cours, that don’t seem to suit our car very well.
We started to address this problem at the last test, but it’s going to
take some time to resolve it. Getting a decent result from P15 would be
difficult enough but, with the ten-place penalty, it’s going to be even
harder. That’s just how it is, though, and we need to work out how we’re
going to play it."
|
Kazuki Nakajima: "Being
knocked out in Q1 is really disappointing, but there was so much traffic
during my last flying lap. Everyone was so close to each other out there
and that basically compromised my lap and prevented me from doing any
better today. If that situation happens when it’s your last chance to
set a quick time, it’s over. It’s now going to be a really tough race for me because it’s so hard to overtake round this track, but I will do my best and really try to get something out of it for the team." |
Patrick Head Director of
Engineering WilliamsF1 "A
very disappointing qualifying for us today. It’s obvious that the car
isn’t strong here, but equally we didn’t get the best out of it this
afternoon as we were setting better times in practice with more fuel on
board. Hopefully we can pull something out of this tomorrow, but,
ultimately, we need to raise the car’s performance." |
|
Magny-Cours, France |
WEATHER: Sunny with a slight
breeze | ||||
|
POS |
DRIVER |
TEAM |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
|
1 |
K Raikkonen |
Ferrari |
- |
- |
1:16.449 |
|
2 |
F Massa |
Ferrari |
- |
- |
1:16.490 |
|
3 |
L Hamilton |
McLaren Mercedes |
- |
- |
1:16.693 |
|
11 |
N Rosberg |
AT&T Williams |
1:16.085 (15th) |
1:16.235 |
- |
|
16 |
K Nakajima |
AT&T Williams |
1:16.243 (16th) |
- |
- |
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