07/10/2007
NEWS STORY
The AT&T Williams team had an eventful but ultimately unrewarding Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai today, with varying wet weather conditions unfortunately not assisting the team with their race strategies. Alex finished the race in twelfth position and Nico, after one unscheduled stop for a punctured tyre, finished in 16th.
Alex Wurz: I guess I was hoping for more rain today. The conditions worked well for me at the beginning and I was the first one to put on dry tyres, which initially worked well for the conditions, so we thought we'd pulled a rabbit out of the hat, but eventually we experienced a similar problem to yesterday with tyre grip and we just dropped back in performance.
Nico Rosberg: It didn't quite work out for us today. I had a poor start which dropped me back, but then it was working pretty well for me in the wet and I passed several cars. In the next stint, we had switched to dry tyres and we had the same problem we experienced yesterday in qualifying with the tyres. On lap 29, I got a left rear puncture at the end of the straight, but I am not sure what caused it as I didn't make contact with anyone else. Obviously it cost me to come in for an extra stop and that was the end of my race. I am now looking forward to Brazil and to end this season with a good result.
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: Our grid position rather dictated our race, but the conditions were difficult today and we might have been luckier. Nico was certainly driving a very good race and overtaking cars but he sustained a puncture which also damaged some bodywork. As a consequence, he had to make an unscheduled stop without which it was quite possible he would have been among the points. As it was, we sent him out on the wrong tyres for the conditions and that was that. Alex's race was dictated by a poor grid position. The race was disappointing for both the drivers and the team. I must say congratulations to the Toro Rosso drivers who I think both did a good job.
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