Team reaction after qualifying in Melbourne (part 2)

Force India Mercedes

The Force India F1 Team will start tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix, the second race of this year’s championship, from tenth with Adrian Sutil and 13th with Tonio Liuzzi. The top 10 start is the team’s second consecutive Q3 entrance and the sixth career top 10 start for Adrian Sutil. Tonio Liuzzi was unfortunately unable to progress into Q3 on this occasion after his potentially quickest runs were interrupted by traffic.

Adrian Sutil : It’s not disappointing to start tenth but it’s not entirely satisfying either as I felt we could have done better. All the same we made it through to Q3, which was another great effort from the team, and we got the maximum we could have in the earlier sessions. I made two runs in Q3 and neither were particularly great as the soft tyres didn’t seem to get up to temperature. We’ve had a good pace through the weekend so we have a strong platform to go from but let’s see what will happen on Sunday. At this stage I don’t want to make any predictions.

Tonio Liuzzi : Really disappointing today. There was so much traffic - it was just impossible. Pretty much every lap I had some problem, particularly with the Williams of Hulkenberg and the Sauber of de la Rosa who don’t seem to be able to use their rear view mirrors. In all the sessions, on all of my runs, I struggled to finish a proper lap. I had green on the first two sectors but then got held up in the last sector, sometimes in the last corner. It’s a shame as I definitely think the pace was there to make it through to the top ten. I think we need to find a solution to this as there are so many cars and too many different speeds. If it’s like this here, I don’t know what it will be like in Monte Carlo, which is even tighter.

Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal : I think it shows a lot that our drivers are disappointed with these positions. Last year we would have been delighted, but this year we expect more. Tonio got caught in traffic on every lap and without this I think we could have been in Q3 with two cars. Adrian was not entirely satisfied with tenth but nevertheless we can look to build on this tomorrow. Overall though a great effort from the team and the drivers to maintain the form we showed in Bahrain.

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Giorgio Ascanelli: "Both drivers did a good job, even if Jaime made a mistake at Turn 14, which he is unhappy about, but I’m happy that he’s unhappy about it! We have introduced a few changes to the car since the last race and it has made a difference today. It is too early to talk about an improving trend, but if we can repeat this type of qualifying performance in Malaysia, then that would be a confirmation that we are moving forward. And what a fantastic lap from Vettel in the Red Bull!"

Sebastien Buemi: “I am reasonably happy with today’s performance as I don’t think I could have done much more and I was unable to improve on my second set of soft tyres. I am very happy to be twelfth as eleventh was too far out of my reach as I was about five tenths off Hamilton. I hope we can come up with a good strategy for tomorrow, because if we do, then hopefully, I can finish in the points.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “I think my performance was quite okay, especially with the harder tyre. Maybe if I had got more out of the soft tyre I could have improved a place or two. But because the track is not so long, the times are all very close. I am quite happy with what I did today, as I am getting closer to my team-mate’s performance which is one of my objectives. But there is still plenty of room for improvement.”

Sauber Ferrari

Despite identical grid positions as in the first race in Bahrain there is some progress to report. Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi qualified 14th and 16th respectively for the Australian Grand Prix but the C29’s set-up has improved and both drivers are optimistic to go and fight for points in tomorrow’s race.

Pedro de la Rosa: We are still a step away from Q3 but we were closer than in Bahrain. We will keep working hard and further improve the car for the future, and tomorrow we will go and fight for points. This is what I really want – finishing a good race and score. I was pushing hard in qualifying and basically I’m happy with my fastest lap. In the traffic it was very difficult to get in a clear lap, especially in Q1 we obviously had many cars and on different speeds. I tried my best to stay out of everybody’s way but it doesn’t always work although I’m very well informed from the pit lane about which car is close to me.

Kamui Kobayashi: I expected to finish qualifying a bit higher up because the speed in the third free practice was encouraging. I pushed very hard and nearly lost the car, but we didn’t make it into Q3. Nevertheless we definitely improved compared to Bahrain. Although the positions are the same the gap is smaller. I’m quite confident for the race.

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: P14 and P16 in qualifying don’t meet our expectations, therefore we cannot be satisfied. I think that today we didn’t really exploit the full potential of the car.

Willy Rampf, Technical Director: It was a qualifying without any particular problems, but our grid positions are quite disappointing. We are not fast enough for Q3, but nevertheless we expected to be further up the grid. There is a pack of cars in the midfield where the gaps are very close, and where you can win or lose positions with just a small time difference. On the positive side, the balance of the car was definitely better here than in Bahrain, but we have to further improve the overall performance.

Lotus Cosworth

The rain held off for Saturday’s running in Melbourne as Lotus Racing took to the track in earnest, keen to maintain their ‘best of the new teams’ record. Throughout the 3rd Practice both cars ran well, with Italian driver Jarno Trulli finishing with a time of 1.29.800 after 16 laps and Heikki Kovalainen completing 19 laps on a best time of 1.29.539. In qualifying itself Lotus Racing successfully maintained their record of best new team, finishing with Heikki Kovalainen 19th on 1:28:797 and Jarno Trulli 20th on 1.29.111.

Jarno Trulli: “I had a problem with the seat which meant it wasn’t easy to drive, bouncing around in the car, so it was a difficult qualifying session. I’m pleased for the team though, as both cars are ahead of the new teams and we’re performing really well. It’s good to see that we have quite a big gap to the other new teams on this track and we’re very satisfied with that – we’re confident for tomorrow and we’ll do our best to try and finish the race again.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “It was a good run this afternoon. I got a good lap out of the car and out of the tyres and in general the car feels much better than it did in Bahrain. We have progressed with the set up, and as a team we are really stepping forward. Our aim for tomorrow is to make sure we stay ahead of the other new teams, and finish the race with both cars. I’m so happy with Lotus, and feel I have the chance to show what I can really do.”

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing Chief Technical Officer: “It was a good solid job in qualifying, both drivers did very well and got the most out of the cars, and I’m very happy with the whole team. Apologies to Jarno for the seat problem, which must have hindered him. One area we’re very pleased with is the growing relationship with Cosworth from whom we’ve had excellent reliability to date.”

Team Principal Tony Fernandes rounded up the day’s achievement saying : “Once again Lotus Racing has done us proud. Consistency and reliability are still our key aims, and the whole team has successfully maintained our quiet progress. Next step is to take the fight to Toro Rosso and BMW Sauber and we’ll keep on fighting to achieve that. As you know Australia is an important place for me, and I – along with all our fans and Clive’s lucky cap - am very much looking forward to seeing Lotus once again on the grid in Melbourne.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Virgin Racing’s Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi ended their second qualifying session of the 2010 season in 21st and 22nd positions respectively in the timesheets.

In this morning’s session, Timo and Lucas achieved 12 and 18 laps respectively. Together with their engineers they were able to refine the set-up for Qualifying and the Race, with Lucas managing to fit in a run on the softer option tyres in order to collect valuable data. Timo’s last run was compromised by a filter blockage, but generally both drivers were more comfortable with the car today.

Timo Glock: We had another tough morning so all I could do is try to get the best out of the car in Qualifying. We were carrying more fuel than we would have liked because of a pick-up problem, otherwise I think we would have been able to have more of a fight with Lotus. Anyway, we’ll do what we can to prepare for tomorrow and see what the race brings.

Lucas di Grassi: Free practice was okay for me and the car was feeling quite good. I was certainly feeling some improvement. I didn’t manage to maximise the performance of the car in qualifying as I made a mistake on my quick lap. I’m looking forward to the race as the car is behaving quite well with heavy fuel.

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: Lucas had a trouble-free morning although he had an unexpected low fuel pick-up problem, which ultimately badly affected both himself and Timo in Qualifying. Timo had another blocked gearbox filter, which meant he went into Qualifying having not tried the option tyre and with a similar fuel pick-up issue. So in the end I think both guys did a good job in Qualifying considering the extra fuel they were carrying and the lack of practice time during the weekend. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but we are getting on top of the issues as they arise and we’ll see if we can make further progress in the race tomorrow.

HRT F1 Cosworth

Both HRT F1 cars passed their second ever qualifying successfully completing each ten laps in Q1, and improved from their morning time to 1.30.526 for Bruno Senna and 1.30.613 for Karun Chandhok. They posted laps in the mid 1m30s bracket - six seconds away from the fastest driver in Q1, which is another great step forward.
Unlike Bahrain they will start their HRT F1 from the grid for tomorrow’s “Qantas’s Australian Grand Prix”.

Bruno Senna: It’s been a bit of a difficult day, stopping on the circuit this morning with an hydraulic problem after we solved yesterday’s fuel pressure problem and then we did a good job with the team. We continue to learn how the car reacts to set up changes. We left early in the session as we were afraid that it would just start to rain. To finish where we are on the grid is okay in the circumstances, and the goal is to make it through the race tomorrow.

Karun Chandhok: I was one of the early starters and joined track with a set of soft tyres. I wanted to make it through Q1 and I did. I am very pleased with this result for our second Grand Prix. We are not too far from the top runners.I haven’t made any significant errors. It’s a great way to start my F1 career!

Dr. Colin Kolles (Team Principal): To have both cars go through the Q1 session is a good result. After the hard work we have been doing, it is nice that we can focus on finer details now. Both drivers did a good job in this second qualifying and handled all the pressure extremely well. Congratulations to the whole team for a great job.