22-Feb-10: Virgin Racing Behind Schedule But Optimistic

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This is F1 Minute and it’s the 22nd February 2010.

We’ve seen the Virgin Racing team struggle during testing over the past couple of weeks, and technical director Nick Wirth has admitted that the niggles they’ve suffered have left them a little bit behind schedule. He said: “It has been a character-building week, that’s for sure. Despite our best efforts to cure the hydraulic problem which has beset our entire test, this was simply not achievable with the components that we had available in the field.” He did add a positive spin on it though, and said they’ve run with heavy fuel, their lap times aren’t meaningful, and they will be looking ahead to the race.

Elsewhere, Stefan GP have had to call off their test in Portimao this week, as Bridgestone can’t supply them with any tyres. The team, who have no entry to F1 as yet, aren’t allowed to have F1 tyres, and Bridgestone couldn’t get them any GP2 tyres either. Stefanovic also confirmed they are talking with Nakajima and Villeneuve for a drive.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.

Williams – 2009 Season Review with Technical Director, Sam Michael

Q: Thinking about 2009, what are your overall thoughts about the team’s season?
SM: 2009 was a good step forward from where we’ve been in previous seasons, particularly from an aerodynamic perspective and in terms of consistency of the car across different tracks. It was a very competitive season this year with only a second covering the field at some races, so it was also satisfying when we were getting an extra one or two tenths out the car at those tracks. Overall, this year was a good step forward, but we didn’t end it where we wanted to be.

Q: What were the highs and lows?
SM: I think the high points in terms of performance were when Nico was leading in Malaysia before the rain came and then Singapore before the white line incident. The car’s much stronger performance at Silverstone also upped our credibility as well.

Q: And how do you feel Nico and Kazuki performed?
SM: Nico’s done a great job for the team and scored all of our points this year. He’s come a long way as a driver since he joined us four years ago and we wish him all the best. Kazuki certainly improved as a driver this year and did a lot of work setting up the car over race weekends. If anything, he drove better this year than last. In 2008 he was scoring points, but in a car that wasn’t as competitive. The difference was that this year the field was so tight and therefore the grid so penalising. If you were a couple of tenths off, you just didn’t cut it.

Q: The team’s three year partnership with Toyota has come to an end with the move to Cosworth. How were Toyota as an engine partner?
SM: Our relationship with Toyota was excellent. They did some great development work for us and they always went the extra mile. We have only good memories of our time with them. It’s a loss for the sport that they have withdrawn, and we wish all the staff at Cologne well for the future.

Q: There were significant changes to the regulations for 2009 with the express purpose of improving the racing. Do you think they worked?
SM: I think that clearly the changes made the cars easier to follow, however, there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done. One of the things that wasn’t addressed in the 2009 rule changes was circuit design. If you look at tracks like Barcelona where no one overtakes and take exactly the same cars to tracks like Monza, Hockenheim etc, there’s plenty of overtaking. The difference iscircuit layout. Organisers need to look closer at creating slower speed corners which feed onto straights and at removing chicanes. If you look at somewhere like Abu Dhabi, there are some good aspects to the circuit, but there are fundamental mistakes. There wasn’t good enough racing there and the organisers need to rectify that before next year. You can’t keep blaming car design. The FIA are looking into this now and will hopefully solve the problem.

Q: Can you take us through the regulation changes for next season?
SM: There will be three main changes: narrower front tyres, no refuelling and a ban on wheel farings. Narrower front tyres will shift weight distribution rearwards slightly, which will affect the aerodynamics and set-up of the car because of where the tyres position the wake. With no refuelling permitted, all the fuel will have to be carried at the start of the race, so the driver will have to manage brakes and tyres more effectively than they’ve ever done. A ban on wheel farings should also improve the wake behind the car, so drivers can get closer to each other. That should help to improve overtaking opportunities.

Q: Looking ahead to 2010, it’s all change at Williams, firstly with a completely new driver pairing. Can you explain the choice of Barrichello and Hulkenberg?
SM: We chose Rubens because he is a multiple Grand Prix winner and has a huge amount of experience; he also still has a huge amount of enthusiasm to win races. He’s quick and is the complete package. We’re combining Rubens with Nico Hulkenberg, a rookie, but one who’s won everything he’s competed in since he started karting. Nico has great potential for the future. Combining youth with experience, we have what we wanted.

Q: What can each bring to the team and what are your expectations for them?
SM: We expect both of them to deliver at the level of the car and beyond. Rubens is already having a motivating effect and we expect him to keep bringing that to everyone at Grove. Nico has worked on the factory floor all year, so everyone knows him and is behind him. We want them both to drive the factory towards wins. Unless you’ve worked with a race winner, you don’t know where that level is and that is something that Rubens will bring us which we anticipate will have a great effect on the team.

Q: The team is switching to Cosworth engines next year. Will they be able to compete against the likes of the Mercedes and Ferraris?
SM: Cosworth have a lot of work to do over the winter on the dynos, particularly on fuel consumption but, in terms of performance and reliability, it will be difficult to judge how competitive they are until we get out on track. They are an engineering-led company, they’re pushing hard and what we’ve seen so far is encouraging.

Q: How is winter development of the FW32 going?
SM: It’s going really well. It’s a big aero race over the winter to see how much downforce you can add and drag you can take off. It’s also a matter of optimising all the different design parts and mechanical development as well. Both are areas of intense activity at the moment and we’re making good progress, but there’s still a lot to do.

Q: When will the FW32 make its track debut?
SM: In the first week of February with the four, single car tests ahead of Bahrain.

Q: There is a young driver test coming up in December, who will the team have in the cockpit?
SM: We will be running Andy Soucek on day one as part of his prize for winning the F2 Championhip and then Nico Hulkenberg will take over for the remaining two days.

Q: What are the team’s ultimate objectives for 2010 and how will we achieve them?
SM: Our objective is to push everything to a much higher level from the solid base that we had with the FW31; from our drivers to the engines, chassis and trackside performance. Everyone in the factory is up for that and we want it to be a year about moving to the next level. We need to re-establish ourselves as one of the top teams and 2010 is our best opportunity to do that.

Williams – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Review

Q&A WITH ROD NELSON, CHIEF OPERATIONS ENGINEER

Q: How much of a technical challenge was the new Yas Marina Circuit?
RN: Yas Marina has the layout of a street circuit, at least in sector 3, but the surface of a dedicated track, unlike its fellow street circuits, Monaco and Singapore. This means that you can run a relatively stiff set-up to optimise aero efficiency, as you would on a typical road course.  While the tight and twisty nature of sector 3 suggests a maximum downforce set-up, it must be tempered to accommodate the relatively long straights in the first two sectors.

Q: How dusty was the asphalt and how much did it rubber-in during the weekend?
RN: Because the circuit is effectively in the desert it was covered in a very fine dust for the start of practice on Friday. Conditions were also fairly windy due to its proximity to the sea so, although the circuit cleaned up during running, much of the dust settled back on track overnight. That left us with relatively low grip levels again for the start of P3 on Saturday morning. We definitely saw an improvement on Sunday with the drivers remarking that they preferred driving the track with the heightened grip levels felt towards the end of the race.

Q: Did you expect the FW31 to be more competitive?
RN: With a more “normal” street track we might have expected the FW31 to be more competitive, as we were in Monaco, Valencia and Singapore. We were, however, still hopeful of a fourth row grid slot in qualifying, but we lost a couple of tenths on the final lap of Q3 which put us down the order for the race.

Q: Most cars struggled on the option tyre. Was that the case with the FW31 and, if so, why?
RN: The option tyre was particularly sensitive to the dusty conditions while the prime was more stable. The option improved somewhat during the race as the circuit rubbered in though.

Q: Did the heat cause any technical issues for the team?
RN: The absolute temperature didn’t cause any issues. However, because qualifying and the race were held in twilight conditions, track temperature dropped throughout both sessions. This affected tyre warm-up and car balance so we had to account for that with car set-up and tyre pressures.

Q: Was eighth place ever on the cards for Nico?
RN: The best chance for points would have been with an early overtaking manoeuvre in the first couple of laps. Strategically, there was not much more that we could have achieved.

Q: Please sum up the 2009 season for AT&T Williams…
RN: Although the car was competitive at the start of the year, we had some difficult races with accidents in Melbourne and poor weather in Malaysia and Shanghai. The middle of the season saw consistent performances, with eight points-scoring races in succession. The consistency faltered somewhat with a poor performance at Monza’s low downforce Autodromo, followed by a pitlane penalty at Singapore which robbed us of a good podium finish. We were once again looking likely for a podium finish at Brazil had it not have been for the gearbox failure, and we finished just out of the points at Abu Dhabi meaning we were unable to defend our position in the Constructors’ Championship.

Q: What plans does the team have for the winter months? Which young drivers will you test and when can we expect to see the new FW32?
RN: The design, development and manufacture process of the new car is well under way now so the entire factory is flat out. We have the three day young driver test that the FIA allows us in December during which we will be testing Andy Soucek following his victory of the inaugural F2 Championship, together with our new race driver, Nico Hulkenberg. The FW32 will be ready to run at the start of the February testing period.

AT&T Williams confirm Barrichello and Hulkenberg

The AT&T Williams team today confirmed that its drivers for 2010 will be Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg.

Frank Williams, Team Principal, said, “Rubens needs no introduction. He is not only the most experienced driver in Formula One, but a passionate and talented driver who fought hard for the Drivers’ Championship this year.  Nico Hulkenberg won the GP2 Championship this season as a rookie and has previously won the F3 Euroseries, Formula Masters, A1 GP and Formula BMW Germany.”

He continued, “Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima remain our drivers until the end of 2009 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contribution to the team. Nico and Kazuki have represented AT&T Williams and our partners with dedication, discipline and skill and we wish them every success with their future endeavours.”

Williams – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Qualifying

AT&T Williams’ qualifying performance in Abu Dhabi this evening was solid if not to the team’s best measure this season. Nico Rosberg’s p9 grid slot provides the prospect of a points finish tomorrow afternoon, but the team will be looking to find sufficient pace on the Yas Marina circuit to defend its slender championship advantage over its nearest rivals. Kazuki Nakajima finished the day in p14, but has kept close company with his team-mate all weekend, and despite a poorer starting position, will be looking to make a contribution to the championship conclusion tomorrow.

Nico Rosberg:
The session went okay, I think 9th was around the best we could get out of today, we are definitely struggling on the open sections of this circuit, but points are definitely possible here and very important for us this weekend. From the 5th row and with a good strategy tomorrow, we can stay ahead of BMW in the constructors and I can hold 7th position ahead of Trulli in the driver’s championship. It’s a good track, not easy and very hot but this is also the last race for me with Williams and I want to do the best for this great team.

Kazuki Nakajima:
I’m a bit disappointed because I didn’t manage to put everything together in Q2, but there was still a reasonable gap to the first ten, so maybe I wouldn’t have made it into the final qualifying session anyway. The track demands that you are precise all the time and one mistake here is costly, which makes it pretty difficult. I don’t think it will be easy to overtake tomorrow, but because of the nature of sectors 1 and 2, we could have a pretty crazy first lap tomorrow, so I still believe anything is possible.

Rod Nelson, Chief Operations Engineer:
It was a reasonably straightforward qualifying session, although we did expect the option tyre to come into its own in Q2, but this didn’t materialise, so we along with most other teams stayed on the prime tyre. We hoped that Nico had another couple of tenths in him to get among the BMWs just in front, but he starts from the clean side of the grid and he should have a competitive race. Kazuki was also looking competitive on what would have been his fastest lap at the end of the prime run in qualifying two but he ran a little wide in turn 14, got some dirt on his tyres and that unfortunately, was that.

Williams – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Practice

Objectives P1
• Mechanical, aero and fuel systems checks
Objectives P2
• Long runs for race balance, brake wear analysis, tyre compares, starts

Conclusions – Rod Nelson, Chief Operations Engineer
“As with any new circuit, it is very important to get out for maximum track time. The circuit is very professional and immaculately presented, however, being near the desert, it is sandy which possibly coloured the times we saw today. Looking at our tyre tests, we have plenty to think about overnight. It will be interesting to see what condition the track starts in tomorrow as it certainly improved significantly over the course of today.”

Nico Rosberg
Runs P1: 1 new prime (1 lap) install, 2 new prime (8 laps) baseline, 3 scrubbed prime (6 laps) aero test, 4 scrubbed prime (5 laps) aero test, 5 scrubbed prime (7 laps) fuel system test
Runs P2: 1 scrubbed prime (5 laps) baseline run, 2 new option (10 laps) long run race tyre test, 3 new prime (10 laps) long run race tyre test, 4 scrubbed prime (7 laps) mechanical set-up test,
5 new option (7 laps) qualifying analysis, grid start.
I enjoyed driving the track for the first time today. It was dirty to begin with and then of course in the second session we were interested in the artificial lighting conditions in the dark and the effect on the tyres of the temperature dropping. Visibility-wise it was fine in the second practice session and again, the temperature change didn’t seem to have too big an effect on us. The more unknown element is the choice of tyre and it is hard to say which is better. In terms of set-up, we have definitely found a direction especially on the mechanical side. All in all, a good day which has given me confidence that we can score some points here this weekend.

Kazuki Nakajima
Runs P1: 1 new prime (1 lap) install, 2 scrubbed prime (9 laps) baseline, 3 scrubbed prime (8 laps) aero test, 4 scrubbed prime (7 laps) fuel system test
Runs P2: 1 scrubbed prime (4 laps) baseline run, 2 new prime (9 laps) long run race tyre test, 3 new option (9 laps) long run race tyre test, 4 new option (6 laps) qualifying analysis, 5 scrubbed option (7 laps) aero & mechanical set-up test, grid start
“It was an interesting day, running P1 in the daylight and P2 in the evening. The track has improved a lot and we have spent a useful day finding a set-up direction. The tyre selection is quite tricky, which will be the key factor we will look at tomorrow.”

Spinal Injuries Association Celebrate 35 Years with the Help of Williams F1

To help celebrate the 35th anniversary of the national charity the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA), the AT&T Williams team has agreed to feature the charity’s logo on either side of the AT&T Williams driver helmets of Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima that will be worn during the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 1 November. This fantastic branding opportunity will help increase awareness of the SIA whilst reaffirming the strong link between the team and charity in this landmark year.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is the perfect forerunner to the charity’s final event of 2009. On Thursday 26 November, the SIA culminate their 35th anniversary activities by hosting a celebration ball and auction for 300 VIP guests at the stunning East Wintergarden venue located in the heart of Canary Wharf, London.

Following on from his car accident in 1986, Frank Williams (Williams F1’s Team Principal) received invaluable personal support from the SIA. Since then, he and his company continue to recognise the SIA as their Official Charity and offer support to many of the charity’s other fundraising activities. Earlier this year, Williams F1 entered a team to run in the prestigious Flora London Marathon as well as the challenging 12 hour Ski-a-Thon raising substantial fundraising revenue through personal sponsorship.

Paul Smith, Executive Director of Spinal Injuries Association, said the charity was extremely grateful for this wonderful opportunity granted by Williams F1, adding; “This is a fantastic gesture from Frank and his team, a truly unique opportunity to have the chance to see the SIA logo travel at over 200mph! As always we wish the AT&T Williams team every success and good fortune in the race.”

Frank Williams added, “The SIA is dedicated to improving the lives of those that are spinal cord injured who often find themselves in difficult circumstances. Like many charities, the SIA is operated by a group of selfless people who deserve as much support in their efforts as possible so we are delighted to be able to lend our support in this way.“

Williams – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Preview

At a Glance
When Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November, 2009
Where Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi
Round 17 of 17
Standings AT&T Williams 34.5pts (6th), N Rosberg 34.5pts (7th), K Nakajima -

Abu Dhabi’s Hot Topics
Will Yas Marina deliver on its promise?
Will the driver market heat up in the desert?
Who will take victory at the last race of the 2009 season?

Race Data
Practice 1: 13:00 – 14:30
Friday
Practice 2: 17:00 – 18:30
Practice 3:  14:00 – 15:00
Saturday
Qualifying:  17:00 – 18:00
Sunday Race:  17:00
Lap Distance 5.554km
Laps 55
Distance 305.470kms

Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi
Formula One is poised for its second event in the Middle East – and the new Yas Marina Circuit features a number of innovative features, including a five star hotel that straddles the track. On the ground, its 5.55 kilometres (run anti-clockwise) incorporate long straights leading into tight corners, to encourage overtaking, plus a series of fast sweeps that will contribute to average lap speeds approaching 200kph. Contemporary protocol dictates that two-stop strategies will almost certainly be the preferred tactic.

Talking technical

Car dynamics
Average turn angle indicates the average angle of a circuit’s corners expressed in degrees. The higher the average turn angle, the more acute the corners in the circuit’s configuration and the greater propensity for understeer to compromise lap time. Average turn angle at the Yas Marina circuit is 1000 – which is below average for the season. The circuit predominately features low speed corners which are linked by two long straights.

Based on simulation work, the end of straight (EOS) speed at the Yas Marina circuit is 300kp/h. The Abu Dhabi track ranks as having the 4th slowest EOS speed on the 2009 calendar, and this is one indicator of the wing level typically selected to optimise the downforce/drag ratio. Meanwhile, Yas Marina also has the 3rd slowest average lap speed of any of the tracks on the calendar.

Pitlane & refuelling strategy
The pitlane length and profile contribute to the determination of the optimum fuel strategy. The pitlane loss at Abu Dhabi is approximately 18.5 seconds, which is the 10th most penalising pitlane in the Championship. To complete a normalised distance of 5km around the Yas Marina circuit requires 2.43kg of fuel against an average of 2.42kg per 5km across all circuits this season, ranking the circuit as being averagely demanding in terms of fuel consumption.

Safety car
Another key contributor to the determination of race strategy is the likelihood of safety car deployments, which are influenced by weather considerations, the availability of clear run-off areas that allow racing to continue while recovery takes place and the circuit profile, especially the character of the entry and exit into turn one at the start of the race. The Yas Marina circuit is new for 2009. It has large run-off areas with additional tarmac sections laid outside the turns, so the circuit’s character is unlikely to induce a safety car period.

Temperature, pressure & humidity
As an example, it is a long observed tradition that drivers arriving at Interlagos complain about a lack of grip and an absence of engine power. Having become acquainted with a baseline of engine and aerodynamic performance during the season, the climb to 750 metres above sea level for one of the final races can, courtesy of the reduction in air density, rob a Formula One car of engine power, aerodynamic performance and cooling. The losses can come close to double digit percentages and thus have a very real impact on car performance.

Air density is a factor of the prevailing ambient temperature, which varies most significantly by season, air pressure which is closely linked to altitude and, to a much smaller degree, by humidity. Thus if races are run at the same time each year, the factor that tends to have the greatest bearing on air density is elevation. Abu Dhabi is at sea level and therefore has the equal highest average pressure (1,013 mbar) of any race venue in the 2009 Championship. Engine power will be high due to the ambient pressure, although there will be a small reduction as a result of the high ambient temperatures.

What the drivers say

What we did after Brazil
Kazuki “As it was my home race in Japan at the start of the month, I’ve pretty much spent the whole of October there. I then travelled straight to Brazil from Tokyo so, after the race last weekend, I finally went back home to Oxford after a full month away. It was nice to finally be home as it was a really busy trip. I’ve had a quiet week or so, catching up with friends and spending some time at the factory with my engineers.”

Nico  “I finally made it home after some technical issues with the plane to London on Sunday after the race and since then have had quite a busy week. On Thursday, I joined a karting day with some guests of Thomson Reuters before going to the factory on Friday to use the sim to prepare for Abu Dhabi. On Monday, I’m in Munich with Randstad and then I fly to Abu Dhabi. I’ll arrive on Tuesday morning and have a day to get used to the heat and time difference before another appearance for RBS in Dubai on Wednesday.”

About Abu Dhabi and the all new Yas Marina Circuit
Nico  “I am really looking forward to going to Abu Dhabi. With the amount of time and effort that has gone into building it, I think it’s going to be a fantastic venue with stunning facilities and a great experience for Formula One. I’ve heard it’s a sell-out too so it should be a really exciting race weekend for the teams and the fans and a great way to end the year.”

Kazuki “It’s really exciting to be going to a brand new circuit. The organisers certainly look like they’ve put a lot of thought into developing the track and the facilities. It all looks very impressive and the perfect place to end the championship.”

Abu Dhabi from a technical perspective
Kazuki “As we haven’t driven the circuit yet, it’s difficult to give an accurate breakdown of the track but our simulator has provided us with some really invaluable data. It looks like set-up will veer towards a medium to high downforce configuration to cope with the long straight (which will require good top speeds) and tight corners which we expect to see on a street circuit. Good grip levels for balance and to cope with the sand will also be crucial. One of the most interesting things for me is that we will drive under a hotel which I can’t wait to experience.”

Nico  “Abu Dhabi is going to be a new experience for all of us so the simulator at Grove has been a real help and I’m pleased I had it at my disposal this week. There are some things like the bumps and kerbs that you can’t completely replicate, but braking, oversteer and understeer are all very similar. It’s definitely a big advantage having a sim like ours as I will be able to drive out of the pits on Friday and know the track pretty much straightaway. The one consideration I’ll be interested to see play out is the fact that we will start the race in daylight and then move into the night time.”

Williams – Brazilian Grand Prix – Review

SYNOPSIS
The AT&T Williams team returned from the penultimate round of this year’s Championship without points despite fielding a competitive car. Unfortunately race performance was compromised by the first mechanical failure of the season when the gearbox in Nico Rosberg’s FW31 failed; the gearbox, which was on its fourth race, has proven to be dependable technology and the team are confident that following a full strip and analysis in the factory tonight that the solution will be straightforward; nevertheless, for a second race in a row, the team has been unable to capitalise on a strong points potential. Nico’s team-mate, Kazuki Nakajima suffered a collision on lap 30, not quite reaching the halfway point in the race. However, despite not scoring any points, AT&T Williams retain 6th place in the Constructors’ Championship.

The team started Friday’s practice sessions with standard preparatory work covering the usual set-up work, systems checks, tyre comparisons and race simulations while also evaluating some new aero parts including another new front wing assembly. The sessions took place in drizzling rain, making for greasy track conditions.

The weather was a more significant factor on Saturday, with torrential rain lashing the circuit leaving standing water on the track for qualifying. The deluge disrupted the session with lengthy red flag incidents in both Q1 and Q2 until the weather cleared. However, the FW31 set-up the team had opted for performed very capably in the wet conditions, with Nico completing both Q1 and Q2 with the fastest times. Q3 was postponed for an hour, but the change in the weather to drier conditions reduced the FW31’s set-up advantage, with Nico and Kazuki in P7 and P9 but ensuring Kazuki joined his team-mate in the top ten for the fourth time this season.

Sunday’s weather was by contrast dry and sunny. Despite the improved conditions, a series of incidents at the start of the race promoted Nico and Kazuki, with Rosberg claiming a place on merit off the line and following the first lap incidents, had climbed to P3. An early safety car period saw both drivers drop a position on the re-start, but both were positioned for points finishes when both cars retired within four laps of each other, Rosberg on lap 27 and Nakajima on lap 31. Despite a high speed impact, Kazuki has unharmed in his accident.

Q&A WITH ROD NELSON, CHIEF OPERATIONS ENGINEER

Q: How competitive was the FW31 at Interlagos?
A: The FW31 showed particularly good pace in the wet, but was also competitive in the dry race.

Q: Did you have any tyre issues in the wet or the dry?
A: Most drivers had problems with the intermediates; struggling to get the fronts to work in the wet and dry conditions.

Q: Saturday marked the longest qualifying session in F1 history. How tough were the
conditions?
A: Track conditions were very poor with a combination of rivers running across the track and standing water which was causing aqua planning.

Q: Nico was fastest in Q1 and Q2, yet he qualified seventh. What caused the drop-off in
performance?
A: We expected to be more competitive in the wet and less so in the dry partly due to the compromises in car set-up that we made prior to qualifying. The FIA’s decision to wait until the rain had cleared certainly didn’t help us.

Q: Nico suffered his first DNF of the season on Sunday. What caused his retirement and how much warning did you get?
A: We were aware of a gearbox issue from early on in the race. As there was no easy fix and we weren’t aware of any system degradation, we carried on running. Around Nico’s pitstop we saw a serious deterioration in performance so we retired the car to avoid further damage, or a safety issue.

Q: Kazuki also retired from the race; please sum up his performance in qualifying and the race.
A: Kazuki was also very competitive in wet qualifying but, as with Nico, we saw this fade a little as the circuit dried out. In the race, he was in a reasonable position but there was some confusion with Kobayashi moving across him out of the pitlane exit that resulted in an accident.

Q: The new Yas Island circuit in Abu Dhabi comes next. How is the team preparing for this final race of the season?
A: We have fully mapped the circuit which allows us to run computer models to assess general characteristics, for example brake wear, likely tyre performance, pitstop times, optimum rear wing level etc. This has also allowed us to produce a 3D representation of the circuit which the drivers can use in the simulator to refine their driving and work on optimising se-tup before the car even turns a wheel.

Williams – Brazilian Grand Prix – Qualifying

Torrential downpours caused chaos at Brazil’s Interlagos circuit today, severely interrupting proceedings for the penultimate qualifying session of the season. The rain drenched track caused incidents in Q1 and Q2, prompting red flags in both, while re-starts were subsequently delayed due to the conditions. Despite the rain, the AT&T Williams team had a competitive afternoon in the wet, the FW31 taking Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima through Q1 in P1 and P4 respectively, then through Q2 at the top of the time sheets. Traffic and a drying track conspired to leave the team further down the order at the end of the day, however, with Nico in P7 and Kazuki in P9 for the Brazilian GP.

Nico Rosberg:
It was good to see that we were fastest on the wets throughout qualifying. Unfortunately, however, I think we just weren’t quick enough on the intermediates. We weren’t able to warm up the front tyres enough so they didn’t work properly which ultimately hurt our pace. Still, 7th is a position from which we can hope for a strong race tomorrow.

Kazuki Nakajima:
It was a difficult qualifying session with a long time between red flags and each round. It would probably have been better if it had continued raining because the car was very competitive in the wet, but we still managed to get a good position. It’s the first time I’ve been in the top ten since Hungary so I’m looking forward to a good race tomorrow.

Rod Nelson, Chief Operations Engineer:
It was a very busy and long qualifying today because of the weather. Both drivers were happy with the car in the wet, and we moved them onto inters at the right time in Q2. Its good to have both drivers in the top ten again, but I think we could have done a little better. It will be an interesting race tomorrow and we should do well.

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