Nico's Belgian GP Column
09 September 08
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Our car performs best on tracks with shallow corners and long braking areas, so we knew before arriving at Spa that the circuit’s high speed sweeps would be a big challenge. We had a few new parts aimed at improving the aerodynamic balance at high speed, but from the start of first practice we knew it was going to be tough to finish in the points.
In qualifying the car was competitive in sectors one and three, the sections with long periods of full throttle, but I struggled through the middle sector and lined up 15th on the grid. Having started fifth at Spa last year, it was disappointing to be so far back.
However, one area of car performance where we’ve improved a lot recently is with our starts. I arrived at Spa late because I was doing some practice starts at Silverstone on Thursday morning and this work paid off on Sunday because the track was damp when the race started. I gained two places on the run to Turn 1, despite having a very heavy car because I was on a one-stop strategy.
All things considered, 12th was about as good as I could have hoped for. Had I not been a lap down, I might have benefitted more from switching to wet weather tyres when the rain came three laps from the end. Nick Heidfeld stopped at the same time as me and with the extra lap at his disposal he was able to move up from eighth to third by the flag, which was pretty amazing.
We now head to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix. We had a very good test there two weeks ago and I expect the car to be more competitive there than it was in Belgium. It would be doubly great to get a good result there because it’s the team’s 500th race.
I was asked recently to name a car from AT&T Williams’ history that I would most like to have driven. That’s easy for me to answer: it would be the 1986 FW11. It had the massively powerful Honda turbo engine and I would have Nelson Piquet as my team-mate. That would be fun!
I’ll catch up with you all again soon,
Nico
