Spanish GP Qualifying

Posted on Saturday 08 May 2010

Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya delivered an unrewarding qualifying result for AT&T Williams today. The team were unable to capitalise on Nico Hulkenberg’s competitive Q1 pace, falling short of a place in the top ten and leaving Nico in P13 on the grid for tomorrow’s race. For the first time this season, Rubens Barrichello was unable to make it past Q1 and will start the Spanish Grand Prix on the ninth row in P18.

Nico Hulkenberg:
Personally, I’m happy with my qualifying laps. We are of course aiming higher than P13, but that is where our performance is at the moment. I went off in Q1 which caused some minor damage to the car but the mechanics fixed it really quickly, and thanks to everyone at the factory who worked so hard to get the updates out in time for my qualifying session.

Rubens Barrichello:
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clear run during any of my outings; I just kept getting caught out by traffic. It’s going to happen to everyone at some stage this season; it was obviously just my turn today. It’s disappointing because I thought we had a shot at Q3 this afternoon. I was also carrying some car damage from stones thrown up by other cars which we will have to fix tonight.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
Overall, that wasn’t a good qualifying performance for the team. Rubens failed to make it out of Q3 after issues with traffic, while we were unable to convert Nico’s pace in Q1 to take him through Q2 and into the top ten.  We'll look at the data to understand why and work on further improvements.