Qualifying for the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix would see AT&T Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg take pole position ending a five year break since the last time Williams secured pole position in 2005. Many felt that Nico's pole was secured through the setup of his car, running a wet setup, rather than through any real pace from the driver. But the Williams team has made it very clear that Nico was running a dry weather set-up and his pace came from a combination of Nico's pace as well as a switch to slicks at the right time.

Williams Director of Engineering Patrick Head said: "Rubens was doing a lap on scrubbed inters and had a moment on one of the corners, so he didn't get a decent lap on scrubbed inters but said, 'the track was dry I am coming in'.

"He was in putting dries in and Tom McCullough (Hulkenberg's engineer) said, 'is the track ready for dries?' and Nico said 'no, it was too wet for dries.' Tom then said, 'well Rubens is in the pits putting on dries' to which Nico nipped straight into the pits and put on dries.

"If you look at the times and sector times you will see for Nico he had a hard out lap and was able to do three consecutive hard laps. I don't think Nico would claim yet that the combination of Nico and Williams is quicker than Sebastian Vettel and a Red Bull in the dry. What he was able to do was get his tyres in the right temperature window better than anybody else and that was partly Nico's driving, toughness and determination, and partly the fact that he was able to do a hard out-lap and three consecutive hard laps.

"Rubens was out on his dries and was behind Lewis Hamilton and Lewis was droning around on dries but incredibly slowly, while the temps went down and down and down. Rubens was not able to find a way past him so his tyres got very cold."

Rubens Barrichello supported Head's view of why Nico secured pole. Rubens added: "To be fairly honest, like I mentioned before, situations like this are there for you to grab them. I think he (Nico) grabbed it harder than anybody else.

"For me, if you look at him first and me sixth it is a bit of a disappointment, but in any case we are much better than what we could do if it was completely dry or completely wet.

"He was very good in keeping the temperatures on the tyres. We could see it on the data, he was fantastic. He went out, he was nailing every lap and unfortunately I don't know what happened but Hamilton was very slow on the out-lap and then I had to create a gap to him.

"My temperatures went down and I knew I had to keep on fighting. But I got to Turn 4 and went straight on so my temperatures went right down. I was fighting the machine for all those laps but it was still a good lap with all we saw. From a 14.4 to a 16.2 is a different level of grip altogether."

Whether this result has any affect on Nico's future with the Williams team is still uncertain as there has been a lot of comment over the possibility of Nico been replaced by GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado in 2011 as Pastor should be able to bring considerable sponsorship to the team.

Despite the uncertainty about his future Nico is still very positive. Hulkenberg said: "This means a pay rise actually... only joking. The situation at Williams is very open, nothing is confirmed but I just try to keep focused on doing a good job, and so far it is working pretty well.

"If I do that and I don't make any silly mistakes, that is what I can do. Then it's up to team if they want to keep me, but I am in positive mood that we will have a successful conclusion to that story."

As for securing pole against some very stiff competition Hulkenberg said: "It is amazing, I still can't believe I've done it. Going on slicks was obviously the right decision, my engineer told me I had one last lap so I was squeezing everything out of car, trying not to get on the wet parts. It was easy to do a mistake but that lap was spot on. It's a great moment for us."

As for his expectations for the race Nico added: "The best thing is to do a good start and drive off from them, but if it's dry that's not going to happen," he said. "I'll try to do my job. These guys are fighting for title so I don't want to cause trouble, but we also have to look at our own performance.

"We are fighting with Force India for P6. I am sure I can manage it and bring back some good points tomorrow."