Saturday: The two Williams out of Q3
By securing the 13th and 14th fastest times in the Japanese Grand Prix qualifying session, Williams expressed satisfaction. The team places its drivers on the cusp of the top 10 and hopes to compete for points in tomorrow's race.
Rubens Barrichello – 18th then 13th in qualifying:
« I want to thank the team for their work and especially for managing to make the modifications I requested. The car didn’t perform very well in free practice this morning, so we made quite a few adjustments before qualifying. Everyone did an excellent job, and we were really able to improve our performance and have a good lap in qualifying.
Pastor Maldonado – 16th then 14th in qualifying:
« The qualifications were not very smooth for me today. First of all, because the time lost yesterday during testing cost me development time today. We were able to make some changes before qualifying, but I didn’t find the best balance for the car. We still have to work on it by tomorrow. »
Mark Gillan – Chief Operations Engineer
« We were able to run without incident this morning in free practice 3 and it’s a good thing after our setbacks on the first day. Rubens [editor’s note: Barrichello] was very disappointed with the balance of his car once it was repaired from his big accident in practice on Friday. The team did a great job finding the right settings between FP3 and qualifying and he was able to do a good lap in qualifying to set the 13th fastest time. »
With limited practice time, Pastor [editor’s note: Maldonado] learned the circuit very well and was quickly able to push to secure the 14th best time.
