After setting the fourth-quickest time in second free practice in Barcelona on Friday afternoon,
Kazuki Nakajima has points in his sights as all the testing miles he has conducted for Williams over the past few months begin to reap rewards.
The Japanese rookie may have finished in seventh position in the season curtain-raiser Down Under – thereby opening his account in only his second-ever grand prix – but since then he has struggled somewhat. Outpacing not only highly-regarded team-mate
Nico Rosberg around the Circuit de Catalunya, but also such luminaries as
Felipe Massa,
Lewis Hamilton and
Heikki Kovalainen was a real boost, he affirmed.
“It was a very good session,” he reflected, speaking to the official
Formula 1 site. “We had tried some set-up variations and I got the better end of it. I am quite confident, but in the end the times in the free practice sessions are difficult to judge and are never the ultimate indication of where a team stands. It's qualifying that separates the wheat from the chaff, so let's wait until Saturday afternoon.
“The new releases on the FW30 are a real step forward, so we should be able to be looking for a good result in qualifying and then in the race. We have done so much mileage to test the reliability of the car, and it has paid off.”
Williams, like Nakajima, has shown mixed form in the 2008 campaign to-date, with a rostrum finish for Rosberg in Melbourne allied to Nakajima's points finish there, but little joy elsewhere. As he looks both back over the opening three races so far, and ahead to the remainder of the season, the GP2 Series graduate cannot hide his enthusiasm for being a member of the sport's elite.
“[Australia] felt really great,” he underlined, “because to score points is a big moment for a driver – especially as scoring points has become pretty hard these days. Straight after the race I was not so happy as I had had a coming-together with Robert [Kubica]. It had to sink in, but once it did the feeling was quite overwhelming.
