Malaysian misery thwarts Melbourne stars.
by Chris Hayes
There will be an awful lot of head-scratching going on at Williams after an abysmal performance in Kuala Lumpur stopped the team's lightning start to its 2008 campaign in its tracks.
The Grove-based outfit's disastrous Malaysian weekend - which began in qualifying with Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima languishing down in 16th and 22nd positions respectively - was compounded on the race's first lap when the young German ploughed into the back of countryman Timo Glock's Toyota. Though he would rejoin after having a new nose fitted to his FW30 and go on to set some blisteringly quick lap times to show what might have been, the damage - in both a literal and metaphorical sense - had already been done.
The result was particularly painful for the team given the Williams' sensational podium success in Melbourne, as technical director Sam Michael acknowledged.
"This was a race weekend to move on from," the Australian rued. "After a poor qualifying, we tried two different strategies on the cars, Nico on a one-stop and Kazuki on a two-stop. The plan didn't work out because Nico lost his front wing on the first lap and Kazuki had a puncture."
Rosberg, the architect behind Williams' rostrum finish seven days earlier, did well to finish as high as 14th in the light of his opening lap indiscretion.
"I knew that starting from 16th I would have to take some risks to make the race worthwhile, and in fact it went well off the line considering I was carrying a lot of fuel," mulled the inaugural GP2 champion after his troubled drive was over.
"Then I came together with Timo Glock. When he left a gap, I went for it and I got alongside him. I guess he didn't see me as he turned in and I couldn't back out, which was unfortunate.
"The car was better today in the race but despite everything I tried, it really wasn't our weekend. Now I am just looking forward to Bahrain where things should go better."
Nakajima had a similarly disappointing race after being demoted to the back of the grid for his Melbourne coming-together with Robert Kubica, the Japanese rookie ultimately proving unable to capitalise on a barnstorming getaway in which he made up seven places.
"From the back of the grid, we decided upon quite an aggressive strategy and I made up quite a few places from the start, but it was difficult to open up a comfortable gap," explained the 23-year-old.
"In the second stint, I had a puncture and had to stop very early, which was not ideal as I had to run two short stints and a long final one.
"I was struggling a little in the last stint and in a high-speed corner I spun off, so after that I just wanted to concentrate on making it home to get two races on the engine."
Williams went into the weekend hoping to consolidate second position in the constructors' championship, but due to its no-score the squad left down in fourth, 15 points adrift of leaders McLaren.
