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On the other hand, I think we were lacking something from the car side. Everyone in the team has worked hard to bring updates for this race, but the others have done the same and apparently a bit more than us. We still have some work do to, but on the positive side, we improved the car from yesterday and I feel that our pace over a long run is pretty good, so we will have to see what happens tomorrow. I don’t feel it is too unrealistic to try and aim for some points.”
Sat: STR, Caterham, Marussia, HRT
2012-05-12 03:35:02Both Toro Rosso drivers made it into Q2 in Spain while Caterham, Marussia and HRT did not…
Toro Rosso:
Jean-Eric Vergne: “I have mixed feelings about this qualifying, because from a personal point of view, I feel I did a better job than I have done in the other sessions this year and for the first time this year, I have out-qualified my team-mate
On the other hand, I think we were lacking something from the car side. Everyone in the team has worked hard to bring updates for this race, but the others have done the same and apparently a bit more than us. We still have some work do to, but on the positive side, we improved the car from yesterday and I feel that our pace over a long run is pretty good, so we will have to see what happens tomorrow. I don’t feel it is too unrealistic to try and aim for some points.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “This was not an ideal session for me. From yesterday I felt we were trying to chase a better balance front and rear on the car and although we made a substantial change overnight, it did not have as much of an effect as we had hoped for in terms of lap time or feeling in the car. In Bahrain I had a great Saturday and a poor Sunday, so Iet’s hope it’s the other way round this time. I’m not going to dwell on today’s performance and now I’m just focussed on having as good a race as possible.”
Caterham:
Vitaly Petrov: “I am very happy with today’s performance. It feels great to have it all come together in qualifying today and I want to thank the team for doing a great job and helping me put together a final lap like that. There was even more time to come as I made a small mistake in sector two that maybe cost me two or three tenths, but between FP3 and qualifying we found a good balance on the softs and a KERS map that I could really get everything out of, so it’s great to see it pay off with that sort of performance. Tomorrow’s going to be an interesting race. I think a lot of it will come down to who uses the rear tyres best and as we’ve already seen earlier this season, we can fight with the cars ahead on Sundays, so hopefully we can carry through this afternoon’s performance to tomorrow, and who knows what could happen.”
Heikki Kovalainen: “I’m not unhappy with today’s performance but we could have definitely got more out of the car this afternoon. I made a mistake in turn three that cost me some time but overall I’ve not really been able to find a setup I’m happy with all weekend. We’ve tried a few different things to find a decent balance but for some reason we just couldn’t find a compromise for qualifying today. We’ll put that behind us now and move on to tomorrow where we’ll aim to maintain the sort of race pace we’ve shown in the first four Grands Prix this season. If we can look after the tyres I think we’ll be ok.”
Marussia:
Charles Pic: “am quite happy to be honest. I think for me all round it is quite a good qualifying. We managed to improve the package for this weekend, but the gap to the cars in front today did not reflect that. I don’t think we really know where we are yet because the car was not 100%. I feel there is more to come for sure. We always seem to be better in the race versus our competitors and I hope that will be true for tomorrow. For now though I am happy with my position and I look forward to the race.”
Timo Glock: “A much better day today than yesterday. I think we got on top of the problems a little bit and in Free Practice 3 this morning I had a good feeling. Unfortunately qualifying wasn’t great for me. I made a mistake on my first flying lap, which was then not quick enough, and on the second flying lap on the first set of tyres I ran into yellow flags at turn 3 where one of the HRTs spun, so I couldn’t do much on first set of tyres. On the second set of tyres I just couldn’t get the lap together. The first sector was good; in the second sector I got a bit of traffic; and for some reason I dropped tyre performance in the last sector. It just didn’t come together today and I will have to sit and analyse it and hope for better things in the race tomorrow.”
HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: “The day went very well, especially this afternoon, so I’m very happy with what we achieved. We completed two very good laps in qualifying, getting under the 1.28 mark which we hadn’t achieved neither yesterday nor this morning. I know that our position seems the same as always but, in terms of performance, we have progressed and that’s what I’ll take away with me. As I always say, we’ve still got a lot of room for improvement but we’re on the right path and that’s what matters. Tomorrow’s race won’t be easy because it’s a tough track and the rear tyres wear out a lot. We have to get off to a good start, give the Marussias a good fight and finish the race in front of all our fans.”
Narain Karthikeyan: “It’s been a very unlucky weekend for me so far. In the morning everything went smoothly but in the afternoon, with the first set of tyres I was pushing really hard and spun on turn 3 and, as a result, I flat-spotted a tyre so I had to come back in to the garage. We were going to go on the second set of tyres but we discovered some problems and due to safety concerns, not only for myself but the others, we decided that the best thing was to not go back out. It seems like my bad luck continues to follow me this weekend and, although I’m disappointed about that, there’s nothing else I can do but keep giving it my best shot.”
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