Formula One news
Dismal afternoon for Williams
19 April 2009 / Results / PhotosShanghai produced a tough afternoon for the Williams team, which approached the Chinese Grand Prix with a view to scoring points. Nico Rosberg, after qualifying seventh, fell down the field after pitting in the early stages whereas Kazuki Nakajima's race ended in the garage on lap forty-three.
Seventh on the grid, Rosberg had looked in contention to finish in the points but suffered from an unusual problem during the Grand Prix. "The main problem I had today was drops sticking to my visor which wouldn't run off, making it virtually impossible to see," he explained. "It's a problem related to my visor's anti-fog system, which I've had in the past but haven't been able to resolve. Fifteen laps before the end of the race, we weren't in a good position so I asked to be switched onto intermediates as I thought we had to try something."
The German set competitive times for a short while, before the arrival of more showers resulted in a high speed spin across the infield at Turn 6, before crossing the race track out of control and luckily not hitting anybody.
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| Patrick Head, Williams Director of Engineering |
Team-mate Nakajima experienced the team's first mechanical problem since Rosberg's blow up in Barcelona last year. "I had a transmission problem today, so unfortunately I couldn't carry on," the Japanese driver explained. "It was very difficult out there, with really poor visibility. There was a lot of standing water and it was hard to keep the car on the track, particularly on the exit of the last corner; I made some mistakes but it was the same for everybody."
"We thought the safety car would stay out for longer than it did at the start of the race so we decided to pull Nico in early to fuel him up," explained director of engineering Patrick Head, as the Grove-based team then saw the safety car come in at the end of the lap. "We then struggled for pace against Alonso, who had done the same as us," Head confirmed. "We had what appears to be a gearbox failure on Kazuki's car which forced us to retire him. It was not a good performance by us today; we made some wrong calls and we will have to look at the circumstances and improve for the future."
GPUpdate.net also regrets to announce the unexpected death of Jim Douglas, a loyal Williams employee since 1981, who worked in the team's machine shop. Our thoughts are with his colleagues, friends and family.
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