Championship Position: Rosberg 17pts, (13th), Nakajima 9pts (15th), AT&T Williams 26pts (8th)
The AT&T Williams team’s race prospects in the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai yesterday were tempered by a poor qualifying outcome on Saturday which gave the team limited opportunity to compete for a good finish.
Given the qualifying result, the team deployed aone-stop strategy for Kazuki Nakajima and a two-stop strategy for Nico Rosberg to retain the widest degree of flexibility for differing race scenarios. Ultimately, the absence of any major weather or safety car events and the timing of pitstops meant that the one-stop option for Kazuki proved to be the more fruitful. He advanced from 17th on the grid to 12th at the finish, a position he strongly defended on the run to the flag. Nico Rosberg was less able to progress with his two stop programme and finished P15.
Kazuki Nakajima:I think it was a good race for me considering where I started. Initially it was very hardwork managing the car on a heavy fuel load. I lost position off the line, but during the firststint I managed to develop a good race pace. The other significant part of the race forme was the last period when I had to work hard to keep quite a few cars behind me anddefend my position, and I was pleased that I succeeded in this.
Nico Rosberg:My race was not good today, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. We ran a different strategy toKazuki just to see if we could generate some advantage, but it didn’t pay off and it wasn’ta lot of fun driving at the back. It didn’t really represent our capability as our pace wasokay and we were the tenth fastest car. I made a few passes but it was quite difficult toovertake as our top gear was too short. From here we can look forward to Brazil whichshould be a bit better for us, and then after this season working with the team on apositive winter in order to move us forward for next year.
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering:It was not a strong result today, but I thought Kazuki did a good job defending hisposition. As we qualified poorly, we had to do something a bit adventurous with ourstrategy, so we split our options on the cars, but unfortunately the two stop route we tookwith Nico didn’t work. Having not attended a race for some time, I must say I am veryimpressed with the professionalism of the race team. The car is reliable, but the problemremains that on this type of circuit it is just not quick enough.
