|
Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
The Turkish Grand Prix yielded a valuable point for the AT&T
Williams team today as Nico Rosberg drove a determined race to bring
his Williams-Toyota FW30 home in eighth place at Istanbul Park. Nico
capitalised on a good start, gaining three places from 11th on the grid
within the first three laps.
Having defended his position throughout the race, Nico’s result was his
best to date in Turkey. Meanwhile, Kazuki Nakajima suffered the first
DNF of his Formula One career today when he was forced to retire
following a first corner incident.
Nico Rosberg:
I
am happy with my result. I had a fantastic first lap, although I very
nearly lost it all when Heidfeld went wide while I was alongside him.
He didn’t know I was there, so I had to go off the track. When I came
back on, I was all over the place but I then passed Coulthard and
Trulli on the outside of turn three. I gave it my all on every lap and
it was a fantastic race for me today. Anymore, though, is just not
possible at the moment, but I am looking forward to the next two races
which traditionally suit our car.
Kazuki Nakajima:
I
don’t know exactly what happened; I just went into the first corner
following the guy in front. I didn’t change my line and I was suddenly
hit from behind. I wanted to make it back to the garage as I thought
there was a chance to get the problem fixed and get back out, but my
car had suffered too much damage so I had to retire. It’s a real shame
because we showed we had good long run pace on Friday and were
expecting to have the same pace in the race, so we could have done well
here this afternoon.
Sam Michael, Technical Director:
It’s
good to get a point for the Constructors’ Championship. It was a
clear-headed drive from Nico; he was flat out all afternoon, didn’t
make any mistakes and delivered. Unfortunately, the traffic just prior
to both pitstops cost him some time. The whole midfield is very tight
now as today demonstrated, so we need to bring some more performance to
the car if we are going to stay in the battle for fourth place. Kazuki
was hit from behind which left his car too badly damaged to continue so
his race was over, which was a shame. Apart from that, we had no
reliability issues.
|
