10/05/2009
NEWS STORY
A closely fought Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona today opened the European rounds of the 2009 World Championship. Starting in P11, Kazuki Nakajima became embroiled in the second corner incident which prompted a premature pitstop for a new nose and a change in strategy. Rejoining at the back of the pack, Kazuki was unable to improve any further than P13. Nico Rosberg benefited from a cleaner start, moving into P7 from a P9 grid position by the end of lap one. Inconsistency compromised a strong strategy and left Nico in P8 and with one point at race end.
Nico Rosberg: I really believe we could have taken fifth place today but things didn't go too well. I had a very good first few laps but, after 10 laps or so, I started to experience a problem at the rear of the car which I've had all weekend. Something inexplicable would just happen and affect the balance which caused a lot of oversteer. Oddly enough, it would then be ok again. As this was happening throughout much of the race, I couldn't really push and that really hurt me. Going home with one point is always positive though and we should have a good car in Monaco so I think we'll have the chance to get a good result there.
Kazuki Nakajima: Another difficult race for me. I didn't have anywhere to go off the line and ended up damaging my front wing as I was caught in the middle of the first lap incident. Fortunately, I didn't lose a massive amount of time because the safety car was deployed, but my race was really over from there. Our race pace was quite good, and that allowed me to get ahead of Fisichella, but this is just a disappointing end to the weekend.
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: Although we were in the points today, it was frustrating not to get more out of the race, particularly as the safety car on the first lap gave our strategy a good advantage over the cars in front. Kazuki was out of points contention early on due to a pitstop to change the front wing. Nico's pace in the first stint was initially good but we then struggled to maintain consistency so we'll have to investigate that. Both cars were reliable.