Bottas qualified 13th with Maldonado 17th for tomorrow's Brazilian GP

The qualifying session was dominated by the weather with rain throughout; so posting a clean lap early on was important before the conditions worsened.

Valtteri Bottas, Williams FW35

Photo by: XPB Images

Valtteri Bottas made it through into Q2 and will start the race from 13th place on the grid tomorrow after getting the most out of the car in the second session.

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer: In FP3 we continued to do some work on both the full wet tyres and intermediates to get them working better in the conditions. We improved but the less water on track the better the car was performing. In qualifying we had both cars on track at the right time, on the right tyres, but as the rain fell harder we struggled for grip.

Valtteri was able to get a better lap to progress into Q2 but as the level of water increased out on track, P13 was the best we could get out of the car today. There is still a chance of a dry race tomorrow, which would suit us better, but whatever the conditions we will be fighting to bring both cars home in the points.

Valtteri Bottas: The weekend has been difficult for us so far in the wet as we have struggled to get the best set-up here. Our car seems to suit the dry better at the moment so I think 13th is a fair reflection of where we are today. It's not a bad position to start the race from, so hopefully we can challenge for the top ten tomorrow and score some more points.

Pastor Maldonado: It was a tough day today; we have been struggling a lot to get temperature into the rear tyres all weekend. With the conditions as they were today we were unable to get 100% out of the car on the first lap which is when some of the best times were posted in Q1. Tomorrow we are still hopeful that we can be in the points, so we will prepare well tonight and do our best in the race.

Williams F1 Team