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Qualifying for
the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix would see AT&T Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg
take pole position ending a five year break since the last time Williams
secured pole position in 2005. Many felt that Nico's pole was secured
through the setup of his car, running a wet setup, rather than through any
real pace from the driver. But the Williams team has made it very clear that
Nico was running a dry weather set-up and his pace came from a combination
of Nico's pace as well as a switch to slicks at the right time.
 Williams
Director of Engineering Patrick Head said: "Rubens was doing a lap on
scrubbed inters and had a moment on one of the corners, so he didn't get a
decent lap on scrubbed inters but said, 'the track was dry I am coming in'.
"He was in putting dries in and Tom McCullough (Hulkenberg's engineer) said,
'is the track ready for dries?' and Nico said 'no, it was too wet for
dries.' Tom then said, 'well Rubens is in the pits putting on dries' to
which Nico nipped straight into the pits and put on dries.
"If you look at the times and sector times you will see for Nico he had a
hard out lap and was able to do three consecutive hard laps. I don't think
Nico would claim yet that the combination of Nico and Williams is quicker
than Sebastian Vettel and a Red Bull in the dry. What he was able to do was
get his tyres in the right temperature window better than anybody else and
that was partly Nico's driving, toughness and determination, and partly the
fact that he was able to do a hard out-lap and three consecutive hard laps.
"Rubens was out on his dries and was behind Lewis Hamilton and Lewis was
droning around on dries but incredibly slowly, while the temps went down and
down and down. Rubens was not able to find a way past him so his tyres got
very cold."
Rubens Barrichello supported Head's view of why Nico secured pole. Rubens
added: "To be fairly honest, like I mentioned before, situations like this
are there for you to grab them. I think he (Nico) grabbed it harder than
anybody else.
"For me, if you look at him first and me sixth it is a bit of a
disappointment, but in any case we are much better than what we could do if
it was completely dry or completely wet.
"He was very good in keeping the temperatures on the tyres. We could see it
on the data, he was fantastic. He went out, he was nailing every lap and
unfortunately I don't know what happened but Hamilton was very slow on the
out-lap and then I had to create a gap to him.
"My temperatures went down and I knew I had to keep on fighting. But I got
to Turn 4 and went straight on so my temperatures went right down. I was
fighting the machine for all those laps but it was still a good lap with all
we saw. From a 14.4 to a 16.2 is a different level of grip altogether."
Whether this result has any affect on Nico's future with the Williams team
is still uncertain as there has been a lot of comment over the possibility
of Nico been replaced by GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado in 2011 as Pastor
should be able to bring considerable sponsorship to the team.
Despite the
uncertainty about his future Nico is still very positive. Hulkenberg said:
"This means a pay rise actually... only joking. The situation at Williams is
very open, nothing is confirmed but I just try to keep focused on doing a
good job, and so far it is working pretty well.
"If I do that and I don't make any silly mistakes, that is what I can do.
Then it's up to team if they want to keep me, but I am in positive mood that
we will have a successful conclusion to that story."
As for securing pole against some very stiff competition Hulkenberg said:
"It is amazing, I still can't believe I've done it. Going on slicks was
obviously the right decision, my engineer told me I had one last lap so I
was squeezing everything out of car, trying not to get on the wet parts. It
was easy to do a mistake but that lap was spot on. It's a great moment for
us."
As for his expectations for the race Nico added: "The best thing is to do a
good start and drive off from them, but if it's dry that's not going to
happen," he said. "I'll try to do my job. These guys are fighting for title
so I don't want to cause trouble, but we also have to look at our own
performance.
"We are fighting with Force India for P6. I am sure I can manage it and
bring back some good points tomorrow." |
