After seeing Nico Rosberg finishing an encouraging fourth fastest in the final practice session at the Magny-Cours circuit the AT&T Williams was to go into qualifying hopeful of seeing at least one of their cars in the top ten. Kazuki Nakajima was in a disappointing fifteenth and given his performances in the practice sessions would be lucky to get past the opening period of qualifying.

Also Nico was to face a ten place grid penalty for his part in the pit lane accident in Canada, so now matter how well he performs he will start from the back of the grid.

With the finish of the first twenty minute period we would see just one Williams car make it into the next period with Kazuki finishing in a what was not a surprising sixteenth position. His race is again going to be a case of trying to use his strategy to see him move into the points.

Nico would finish one place ahead of Kazuki with a time of 1m:16.085. This time was slower  than that he had been able to achieve in the final practice session.

Nico would start the second period of qualifying an despite using the softer option tyre would again finish in a disappointing fifteenth and as such out of qualifying. Given the pace of the Williams cars this result was not surprising. As Williams Director of Engineering said " ultimately, we need to raise the car’s performance."

As for the race with Kazuki starting from sixteenth and Nico staring from the back of the grid as a result of his ten place grid penalty the prospects for a reasonable points scoring result is doubtful. But with the possibility of rain on Sunday anything could happen in the race if it rains.