Rubens Barrichello is ‘satisfied’ after taking 8th place in qualifying for Williams at Silverstone today, though the Brazilian says the team still have to improve and will be looking to make up a couple of places in the race tomorrow.

“Top eight in qualifying is a good effort by the team,” said the veteran Brazilian. “We still have to improve but today’s result is satisfying and probably the best we could hope for. I hope we can get into the top six tomorrow. The cars are all very close, and there aren’t too many overtaking opportunities around the lap, so it’s going to be a good battle. The upgrades are all working well, but they need more development if we are to move higher up the field,” Barrichello reflected.

Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg meanwhile will start 13th in the other Williams. He struggled with his FW32 and was also blocked on his final two flying  laps at the end of Q2, meaning he didn’t have a clean run on the option tyres.

“Traffic really destroyed qualifying for me today,” the German rookie lamented. “As I was going into the first corner on a quick lap in Q2, Liuzzi exited the pitlane under blue flags but didn’t move out of my way. That ruined my lap from the outset as I couldn’t get past him. I also struggled with the car today. I don’t know why and I’ll be looking into that with my engineers now.”

Williams’ Technical director Sam Michael said that ‘scoring points’ is their aim for tomorrow’s race: “That was a good qualifying by Rubens. It was a shame that Nico didn’t go through to Q3. All the new parts have improved the cars’ pace but, as usual, we need to keep working hard on the whole car package. Our focus is now on the race and scoring points tomorrow.”