Nico's Brazilian GP Column

Posted on Tuesday 04 Nov 2008 and tagged with nico, brazil.

While I was pretty happy with my race performance at Interlagos, the weekend was very disappointing overall. We expected the FW30 to be more competitive in Brazil than it has been at recent races, but that wasn’t the case; I qualified 18th, which was equal to my worst qualifying position of the year.

The car lacked grip on the option tyre during Q1. That might have had something to do with me being unable to warm up my final set of tyres properly because I was stuck in traffic, but I think most people had traffic because Interlagos is the shortest lap of the year in terms of time and it gets pretty crowded when 20 cars are on it.

I was really aggressive in the race and that helped me to make up a lot of positions. I found really good traction away from the grid, despite the slippery conditions, and made up five places on the opening lap. I made contact with David Coulthard at Turn 1, but the impact didn’t affect the handling of my car and I was able to continue unabated.

On lap seven I gained more positions when I became only the second driver to pit for dry tyres. I then planned to make just one more stop, but when rain started to fall eight laps from the end of the race I made an unscheduled stop for wet tyres. Still, 12th place from 18th on the grid wasn’t too bad when you consider our level of competitiveness.

The battle at the front between Ferrari and McLaren looked pretty intense and I’m really happy that Lewis Hamilton won the World Championship. We were team-mates in karting, so we’ve known each other for a long time and I think he deserved the title this year.

That brings to an end a pretty intense season. AT&T Williams has had highs and lows this year, but we’ve learnt from every situation and I hope that will make us stronger in the future. My first Formula One podium in Melbourne was an amazing way to start the year and I was also pleased with my drive to second place in Singapore. I guess the lowest points of the year were my crashes at Monaco and Montreal because the FW30 was competitive in both of those races and we should have scored lots of points.

I’m now going to take a bit of holiday before returning for winter testing. There’s a lot of work to be done between now and Melbourne, both at the factory and on the test track, and I’m very excited about next year’s car. The new rules are going to present quite a challenge for all the teams and drivers, but I think they will make next year a very exciting season.

I’m looking forward to racing on slick tyres again. I grew up using them in karting, Formula BMW and Formula 3 and they are much more forgiving than grooved tyres because there’s a larger contact patch. Roll on the first test!

Thanks to all our fans for your continued support. Let’s hope 2009 turns out to be a better year.

All the best,

Nico