Summary – Williams glimpses a ray of hope

The example of the Williams-Toyota team clearly shows the importance of the qualifying session on this urban circuit. The situation proves to be identical to Monaco, and the lack of overtaking during the race means that the starting grid position is of crucial importance.

Rosberg qualified in 9th position but benefited from Kimi Räikkönen’s retirement to finish in the points. His teammate, Nakajima, was less fortunate with an incident to his name at the start of the race.

Nico Rosberg – 8th:

« I am very happy with this result. It is good to go home with a point today. It had been a very long time. The race went very well for me and it follows on from my qualifying session. The result is also good for the team because we are heading in the right direction. Once again, I would like to say that the city of Valencia did an excellent job because the race was fun. »

Kazuki Nakajima – 15th:

« I had a poor start and we need to find out why. On the first lap, between turns four and five, I was right behind Alonso and I couldn’t avoid him going into the turn. After that, I just tried to be consistent. My pace was good, but I was behind Barrichello, who is very difficult to overtake. Eventually, I did it, and my pace improved, but it was too late. »

Patrick Head – Director of Engineering:

« With the reliability of cars these days, the point scored is just reward for 9th and 11th place on the grid. Kazuki went to challenge Alonso in the beginning and lost many places. He then had to go through the pits to change the wing. His strategy was for a single stop before this incident. »

Unfortunately, we missed seventh place with Rosberg by a few fractions of a second following his second pit stop. We must now return to the factory to find out how to gain those few tenths.