Brazilian GP Qualifying

Posted on Saturday 17 Oct 2009 and tagged with brazil, sao-paulo.

Torrential downpours caused chaos at Brazil’s Interlagos circuit today, severely interrupting proceedings for the penultimate qualifying session of the season. The rain drenched track caused incidents in Q1 and Q2, prompting red flags in both, while re-starts were subsequently delayed due to the conditions. Despite the rain, the AT&T Williams team had a competitive afternoon in the wet, the FW31 taking Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima through Q1 in P1 and P4 respectively, then through Q2 at the top of the time sheets. Traffic and a drying track conspired to leave the team further down the order at the end of the day, however, with Nico in P7 and Kazuki in P9 for the Brazilian GP.

Nico Rosberg:
It was good to see that we were fastest on the wets throughout qualifying. Unfortunately, however, I think we just weren’t quick enough on the intermediates. We weren’t able to warm up the front tyres enough so they didn’t work properly which ultimately hurt our pace. Still, 7th is a position from which we can hope for a strong race tomorrow.

Kazuki Nakajima:
It was a difficult qualifying session with a long time between red flags and each round. It would probably have been better if it had continued raining because the car was very competitive in the wet, but we still managed to get a good position. It’s the first time I’ve been in the top ten since Hungary so I’m looking forward to a good race tomorrow.

Rod Nelson, Chief Operations Engineer:
It was a very busy and long qualifying today because of the weather. Both drivers were happy with the car in the wet, and we moved them onto inters at the right time in Q2. Its good to have both drivers in the top ten again, but I think we could have done a little better. It will be an interesting race tomorrow and we should do well.

Qualifying Result

Position	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	R Barrichello	Brawn GP	-	-	1:19.576
2	M Webber	Red Bull Racing	-	-	1:19.668
3	A Sutil	Force India	-	-	1:19.912
7	N Rosberg	AT&T Williams	1:22.828 (1st)	1:20.368 (1st)	1:20.326
9	K Nakajima	AT&T Williams	1:23.161 (4th)	1:20.427 (2nd)	1:20.674