Team reaction after qualifying in Hungaroring (part 2)

Williams Cosworth

In today’s qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Nico Hulkenberg maintained his recent form of contesting all three sessions and completed the afternoon in the top ten. After a strong start, Nico’s AT&T Williams team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, fell foul of the short lap distance which created a very busy Q2 session during which the Brazilian was unable to find sufficient track space with which to extract the best from the Bridgestone option tyre. He will start tomorrow’s race in P12.

Nico Hulkenberg: Reaching Q3 was good today as everybody is very aware how closely bunched the field is behind the front few teams, but as always, it is human nature to feel that more could have been possible. The Renaults and De La Rosa were strong today with just a couple of tenths between us all. Although overtaking will be challenging tomorrow, we know that the race is going to be highly competitive with the form of the cars around us.

Rubens Barrichello: In Q1, I was very happy, the car was perfect and I only needed one run and was quite comfortable to see the rest of the session out in the garage. Then going into Q2, I had a lot of traffic on my out lap and basically because the lap was so slow, I don’t think the tyre got up to operating temperature. The tyres were just not there, and the car balance was out and by the last run, the tyres had given up.

Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: It is a long race ahead tomorrow and we will need better starts than at Hockenheim, as well as good first laps. Both tyres look stable but I think most of the front teams will run similar strategies.

Force India Mercedes

The Force India F1 Team will start tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix with Adrian Sutil in 13th position and Tonio Liuzzi in 16th following another tight qualifying session.

Despite a challenging weekend Adrian was two tenths from a Q3 position and will line up alongside the Williams of Barrichello and behind reigning world champion Button for tomorrow’s race. Tonio had a more difficult qualifying after he could not run in the last half of FP3 due to a minor driveshaft-related issue. He recovered well to set the 12th quickest time in Q1 but just missed his optimum lap time in Q2 with traffic. He will start from 16th, directly behind Michael Schumacher.

Adrian Sutil: I am quite happy about the qualifying performance today. We’re very close to the top ten, which we didn’t think we would be after this morning. We struggled to make the soft tyres work again and in the end went out in qualifying not really having a clear picture on performance, so 13th position is a good result. We know tomorrow will be tough as it’s a hard place to overtake but our race pace is good. We will look to have a quick start, use strategy and pit stops to make a difference and try to gain as many positions as we can. I always think points are possible and I’ll be going into the race pretty positive after this performance today.

Tonio Liuzzi: We had some problems with a driveshaft boot* in the morning and didn’t run the soft tyres so we went into qualifying not knowing completely how we would perform. However the balance was very easy and we looked positive in Q1, setting a good time fairly quickly. Unfortunately I hit traffic in Q2 and didn’t get a clear lap, and then lost the rear in the last corner on my last lap. I was more than half a second faster until that point so we could have got a much better position for the start. Q3 would have been very difficult but for sure we are not in a position we should be. Tomorrow it’s going to be difficult to overtake but there’s always hope and with our race pace we’re encouraged we can make up at least a couple of positions.

* The driveshaft boot is a component that stops grease leaking from the driveshaft

Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal:
A very good effort from the team and both drivers on a track we know doesn’t completely suit us. It’s very twisty and low grip and our strengths tend to be more to the quicker, flowing circuits. We knew it would be a tough weekend but we’ve put ourselves in a reasonable position for tomorrow’s race. It’s not ideal, but bearing in mind the small issues this morning, to be just two tenths from Q3 is a very encouraging result. The Hungaroring is a difficult place to overtake but it’s not impossible and we will be trying to get as many positions back as we can to maintain our championship position.

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Sebastien Buemi: “I would say the car worked well and the balance was quite good, even if I did not feel so comfortable in the car up until now. At least I finished in front of my team-mate, having been behind him most of the weekend, which is every driver’s first target. I think our main problem is still a lack of downforce and pace, especially in the twisty corners in the second sector. I think it will be a long and difficult race, in which the key will be to try and make up some places at the start, because after that moment, it gets very hard to overtake other cars. Last year, I was on the dirty side of the grid and made a very bad start, so I hope that being on the clean side will be a big improvement tomorrow.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “Not too bad today and for me at least, I was on the limit of what the car could do. We found a good set-up for Q1, but maybe I had a bit too much front wing in Q2 and the car was oversteering too much. My lap times were all similar and I think it was the best I could do today, even if I had expected a little bit more from the upgrades we had here. And just to make it clear, I was not held up by Schumacher.”

Giorgio Ascanelli: “Today’s performance was a little bit better than usual, as we genuinely got both cars into Q2. By this I mean that even if our two drivers have also been in Q2 in recent races, it has usually been because of the misfortune or mistakes of others. We have worked hard over the past months to produce the updates we have brought here, which have delivered something, but clearly it is still not enough.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

A great day for Virgin Racing as Lucas di Grassi headed the new teams’ section of the timesheets in the third free practice session for tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix, and Timo Glock took the same honours in Qualifying.

Just like yesterday, the sun shone and the cars ran faultlessly as Timo and Lucas worked on their race set-ups in the final practice session. The team felt they had made significant progress overnight and were hoping to demonstrate this in practice. After completing the planned work on Prime tyres, both drivers went out on Options at the end of the session, with Lucas putting in a great lap to finish 19th and first of the new teams. Timo was just two and a half tenths behind him.

Qualifying proved to be one of the most exciting sessions yet for the team, with Timo snatching 19th position and the new teams’ pole on his final lap. Lucas was frustrated to be classified 22nd, after his floor was damaged when he ran wide, but the team goes forward into the race confidently, with a good race set-up and two drivers fired up to deliver a good result.

Timo Glock: “We had a very good two days so far and the whole weekend went in the right direction. The team have done a great job. In general I was quite happy with the car and in qualifying I expected Lotus to be ahead of us because we were still struggling over the bumps. My two qualifying laps were very good and I am really happy with my performance and that of the team. A happy day and I hope we can continue this into the race tomorrow.”

Lucas di Grassi: “We had a very strong free practice 3 this morning. The car was feeling very good and we had managed to improve it from yesterday. In qualifying I ran wide in my first flying lap and damaged the floor of my car, making me lose a lot of downforce and a lot of pace through qualifying. I’m very confident that tomorrow the car will be back as strong as it was in free practice 3.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “Geeks of the world – rejoice! After the disappointment of not demonstrating Virgin Racing’s performance progress in Silverstone and Hockenheim, we have finally managed to have a relatively smooth weekend with the revised VR-01 and have regained our place at the top of the new teams. Lucas’s day was looking very strong in FP3, but it seems that he ran wide at the beginning of qualifying which tore a big hole in his floor and damaged his front wing. This will have lost a lot of downforce and compromised his qualifying, but he will be strong in the race, as ever. Timo and his crew made a big step forward with the car overnight and we knew after his first run we were in good shape. His second run was another good step and he did a great job to give the team our best qualifying result since Shanghai. From the outset, Virgin Racing has dared to be different and I want to thank all the team, our partners, sponsors and fans for keeping the faith this year in our unique digital development process. In the meantime, we’ll focus on a strong race performance from both cars tomorrow.”

Lotus Cosworth

Lotus Racing will start the Hungarian Grand Prix in 20th and 21st positions, with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli qualifying within 1/10th of a second of each other at the Hungaroring in today’s official qualifying session.

Heikki Kovalainen: 20th, 1.24.120, 9 laps “I think we got as much out of the car as we could today. Considering the time I lost yesterday it felt like the maximum this afternoon. The car felt ok, and it’s a bit of a relief we got to where we are as I wasn’t sure about the balance today, bearing in mind I’d missed most of FP2. We’re still in a decent position for tomorrow and we’ll focus on the start and the strategy, and make sure we stay ahead of the other new teams in the race itself.”

Jarno Trulli: 21st, 1.24.199 9 laps “It’s a bit disappointing today. I was going well on the first run but I was held by the traffic in the last sector and lost about 4/10ths, so we had to abort that lap – it’s a shame as that was looking like pretty good. On the second run the tyres didn’t work as well as we’d hoped and that cost me a lot of time. Despite that we’ll do our best tomorrow, and want to see both cars across the finish line.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “Little bit of a disappointing qualifying session today. After the first run both drivers were relatively happy, but neither of them got a clean run on the second set of tyres – Jarno in particular said he had very little grip with the second set. However, we are where we are, and we’re looking for a strong two car finish tomorrow.”

Kamarudin Meranun, Deputy Team Principal: “After the issues we had on Friday with Heikki we’ve got to be relatively pleased with where we are. Jarno’s lap was obviously affected by traffic, and I think Heikki got as much out of his runs as he could with the time he lost yesterday, so we’re still hopeful about getting ahead of the Virgin tomorrow, and getting both cars home.”

HRT F1 Cosworth

Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team, completed qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix today. Both Bruno Senna’s and Sakon Yamamoto’s cars performed reliably and also managed to run faster than in the morning session. Bruno Senna will start tomorrow’s race from 23rd position after clocking a best lap time of 1.26.391 and Sakon Yamamoto will start just behind him in 24th position (1.26.453).

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “Today, Sakon Yamamoto has shown a good performance but unfortunately, he made a mistake in the last sector of his final lap, which cost him three and a half tenths. He improved continuously over the weekend and found his pace early in the practices. Bruno Senna did his best lap time on his second outing on option tyres. Tomorrow is going to be a long and physically tough race as the temperatures are getting high on this technical track here in Hungary.”

Sakon Yamamoto, Race driver: “I am quite happy with this result for the team, which worked really hard and provided me a good car. The track conditions have changed compared to the practice session in the morning and it was a bit slippery. Consequently, it was a challenging qualifying and I could have done a better result but unfortunately, I lost some time in the last sector of my fastest lap. Apart from this, we could improve all over the weekend and we are looking forward to the race tomorrow, which is going to be a long one. I’ll try to concentrate from the beginning until the end and to show my best performance.”

Bruno Senna, Race driver: “It was a bit frustrating qualifying today and we had the potential to be further up. We were experimenting with the set-up this weekend as we were chasing after the changing track conditions. The car was hard to drive in qualifying and we have to look into the data and find out what we can do for the race tomorrow.”