Assessment: Rosberg allows Williams to limit the damage

With a point scored at the end of the Belgian Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg delivered a very strong performance considering the Williams cars were languishing at the bottom of the standings during the various free practice sessions.

Starting from 10th position on the grid, Nico benefited from a consistent pace and the misfortunes of the Toyotas and Mark Webber to secure the last point available, defending it solidly at the end of the race against the faster Red Bull of the Australian who was close behind him. It’s the eighth consecutive time Rosberg has finished in the points.

Nakajima had a quieter race, starting from a distant 18th position; the Japanese driver avoided the first-lap crash to finish in 13th place, 18 seconds behind his teammate.

Nico Rosberg – 8th:

«We absolutely got the maximum out of today and so I’m not too unhappy with the result. Even though the car was bad all Friday, we made progress and had a reasonable qualifying. We built on that with a good start in the race and we have another points finish in 8th position. It’s more than I would have hoped for at the start of the weekend. The car was difficult to drive today and there was a lot to do with the tires. When the sun was out, the tires worked well, especially the soft tires, in the last stint. In those conditions, I was able to push more.»

Kazuki Nakajima – 13th:

We struggled with our pace all weekend here, and qualifying was particularly difficult, which of course affected our race potential. Ultimately, the race was slightly better than Saturday, but of course all our focus will now be on what we can do to ensure better results in Italy in two weeks.

Sam Michael – Technical Director:

« It wasn’t a competitive race for us, but at least we scored a point and Nico fought well for that position. We were competitive at a few moments today but not over the race distance. What is clear is that on low downforce circuits we are not as competitive as on regular high downforce circuits, and we have a similar race in two weeks, so we will put our energy into being able to score more points in Italy. »