Nico Hulkenberg is about to embark on the first official qualifying session of his Formula One career and after a rather positive free practice session on Friday where he ended up sixth fastest overall, and then again this morning when he was tenth, the young German is confident that hsi debut here in Bahrain will be a positive experience...

Nico how is it to be in F1?
I mean it is nice and great to finally be here but I am sure every driver who has come here worked very hard and long for it, same for me. Just happy to be here and looking forward hopefully to a long career.

Nico, a remarkable day for you ending up sixth. How has it gone?
It was okay. We were able to go through our programme and be able to get comfortable in the car on the track. It ran smoothly without any technical or other problems.

In testing, you held the record for red flags, so you must be happy with the reliability?
Yeah, I mean again also Williams has pushed very hard and still everyday there is a new guy coming from the UK bringing new parts, not only performance parts but reliability parts, to get our car better. A big thank you to the guys in the factory. Without them we would not be where we are.

How good a teacher is Rubens Barrichello? The most experienced guy on the grid.
He is not really teaching me. I am just looking at what he is doing. As a team-mate he is always transparent. I can see how he drives, how he works, how he approaches the weekend, so in that aspect I can see and learn from him.

You have got a new engine. Is it quite a surprise where you are?
With a new engine? I think Cosworth have also done a good and remarkable job. We did not have any problems during winter testing and again here the engine is running fine and performance wise it is not too bad at all.

Nico, your ex-partner Nico Rosberg set fastest lap in his first race for Williams, so do you expect the same this year?
No, I don’t expect the same. I hope for a good points’ finish but as Sebastian mentioned, we are still a bit left in the dark as to who is where, even today. There are big differences in lap times, and obviously big differences in fuel loads, so we will have to wait and see where we end up but I hope for a good points result.

Nico, we could see some black smoke from the front tyres; do you expect some brake issues regarding the heavier cars and are they the same brake specification as last year?
It shouldn’t be a problem but Bahrain is always quite heavy on brakes. I’m sure every team is aware of that. We take that into consideration but it’s just brake dust. If you have big braking from 300kph down to 60 kph, there’s just a lot of smoke but right now I’m not too worried about that.