British GP Race

Posted on Sunday 06 Jul 2008 and tagged with britain.

Predictably extreme weather conditions promoted one of the most eventful races of the season today at round nine of the Championship, the British Grand Prix. Kazuki Nakajima drove his FW30 through the challenging conditions to a points-paying eighth place finish for AT&T Williams at the team’s home Grand Prix. Despite starting from the pitlane and an unscheduled stop for a new nose following an incident prompted by the wet track, Nico Rosberg climbed his way through the field to finish the race in P9, just outside the points.

Kazuki Nakajima:
It was good to score a point again, but it was a shame to lose seventh place to Jarno (Trulli) on the last lap. His tyres were in a better condition than mine, though, and he was just a bit quicker than me in the final laps when the track was drying out. It was enjoyable out there today, although a little hard to control the car in the opening and closing stages. The team made a really good decision to put me on the extreme wets at just the right time and so I was able to manage the car well in such wet conditions.

Nico Rosberg:
It was pretty difficult out there today. When the rain started, there were just rivers of water everywhere which, on wets, caused everyone to aquaplane all over the place. Circuit conditions were continually changing as well which caused the water to move around the track making it quite hard to tell where the best line was. It wasn’t an easy race, but we definitely had the strategy right and came in for the extreme wets at precisely the right moment. After that, it was going well until the incident with Timo (Glock). He was ten seconds a lap slower than me but, running behind him, visibility was zero in certain corners and the next thing that happened I was in the back of him. A big disappointment. I am now looking forward to Hockenheim. It’s my home Grand Prix and I expect us to go better there because the track is more suited to our car.

Sam Michael, Technical Director:
It was a mixed race for us, really. After a difficult first part, the pitwall made some good calls on the tyres in the changing weather conditions, which enabled us to progress up the field in the middle of the race, certainly enough to get both cars into the points. Unfortunately, we only managed to get one car into the points, so at the end of a difficult weekend, we will now look to the next race to a better job than here.

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