28/09/2008
NEWS STORY
Podium! Nico Rosberg led home a double points score for the AT&T Williams team, in the process claiming a career-best second place in the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix. In an incident-filled and physically demanding race, Rosberg overcame the disadvantage of a stop-go penalty with a superlative drive in Formula One’s first night race to score eight points and the team’s best finish since the European Grand Prix in 2005. Teammate Kazuki Nakajima contributed a further point to the tally with a spirited drive to eighth place.
Nico Rosberg: It was a race of so many ups and downs for me. It started badly as I ended up behind a heavy Jarno Trulli and I absolutely had to get by him to allow my strategy to work. It was quite a hairy moment getting past because it is so bumpy to outbrake at turn 7 and I couldn’t get close at turn 1, the only two places where overtaking is possible. Anyway, having eventually cleared him, I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the safety car had
come out just after the team had called me in for my stop and I thought that’s the end of it. Before my stop-go penalty, I just had to push like mad and do qualifying lap after qualifying lap and I managed to build enough of a gap to complete my second stop and hold on to second place. With a handful or laps to go in the most physical race this year and a car in your mirrors, time goes amazingly slowly, but for once everything went our way. I think Frank will have to wear his lucky tartan trousers again!
Kazuki Nakajima: It was a great day for the team, returning to form and of course congratulations to Nico. As far as my race was concerned, the Safety Car timing was a little bit unfortunate, but I just had to push my race pace on regardless of what happened and overtake a few cars, and in the end, it was great to claim a point for the first time in a while. Hopefully today showed potential which we can try to maintain for the rest of the season.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: It was a fantastic result from Nico, obviously the penalty for refuelling under the safety car could have been a problem, but he still managed to open up a sufficient gap to achieve a second podium this season and his career best finish. Kazuki did well to hang in there and score a point too, all-in-all it was just what the team needed. We didn’t have any technical problems and everything went without a hitch, so it was a great effort from everyone concerned.