Formula One news

Williams breaks points drought

Williams broke its points drought today at Shanghai courtesy of an eighth place finish for Mark Webber. Team mate Nico Rosberg ended the day in eleventh.

"It was good to break the points drought today," said technical director Sam Michael. "Mark drove a great race in the wet and then in the drying conditions. Nico drove well, but he was stuck in traffic after the first stint and it was difficult for him to make any ground. The variable conditions aside, the car has definitely improved both in reliability and performance and we will go to the last two races with a target to score some more points."

Webber commented, "I had a reasonable start to the race and I got into the groove okay and started to catch David (Coulthard). Once I had got past, I started to think about when I should change to dry tyres, but the track took a long, long time to dry, so we decided to leave the same tyres on in the first stop, which was the right thing to do. However, I did have a spin and it took an age to get the traction back on the synthetic grass. When we eventually did stop for dry tyres, I had another 3600 spin but pushed hard to keep the gap from Coulthard behind me right to the end and make sure we finished in the points, which is great for the team."

Rosberg added, "It was, without doubt, a difficult day. What messed up my race was not being able to get past Coulthard and I lost a lot of time behind him at the beginning of the race. It was just very difficult and I didn't want to risk too much and compromise the rest of my race. Then when we switched to dry tyres the situation improved, but towards the end of the race it became difficult again with graining on the front tyres. This took me off the dry line occasionally, and it was not easy to hold the car in the wet! I have learnt a lot again today about a new circuit and of course a lot about tyre behaviour under different track conditions."

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