24/06/2006
NEWS STORY
Sam Michael, Technical Director, WilliamsF1: "It was obviously unfortunate for Mark not to make it beyond the first session. We changed our plan to go from one timed lap to two timed lap runs and that meant the cars were stacked very close together without the usual separation of 30 seconds, but we couldn't maintain the gap because of the time left in the session and Mark suffered from traffic with Nico on his timed runs. It was a good day for Nico who just missed out on the top four by half a tenth. We now will consider our strategy for two cars starting from different parts of the grid."
Nico Rosberg: "My qualifying went pretty well today even if it was full of incident. On my fastest lap in the first session I even touched the wall! My father encouraged me to use every millimetre possible and that is what I did, but maybe I exaggerated a bit - I was lucky to get away with it but it worked out fine in the end. I am pretty pleased to finish up sixth as I think it gives me a good chance to do well for the team tomorrow."
Mark Webber: "The car was quick enough to get through to the next group of course and I was doing everything I could to achieve this, but it was very frustrating to get caught behind my team-mate on the back straight which hurt me into the last corner. It was a shame to lose so much time, but that's the way it goes and I am not here to give a shopping list of excuses."
Sean O'Mahony, Principal Engineer - F1 Race Engineering, Cosworth Ltd: "Not too much to report on the engine side today - we had no engine problems in the morning practice or during qualifying. We're looking forward to the challenge of tomorrow where the objective will be maximising engine duty in the race while still leaving something in hand for Indianapolis."
To check out our Canada qualifying picture gallery, click here