Team reaction after qualifying in Monza (part 1)

Luca di Montezemolo: "I am very happy about this result, which I found so exciting that I was jumping for joy on the pit wall. Having both our cars on the front two rows in front of all our fans is very nice. It goes without saying, this track has always delivered strong emotions for me. The team did a great job and never gave up trying. Now we must concentrate fully because the hardest part is still to come tomorrow."

Stefano Domenicali: "A really great and important result. Fernando and Felipe did a fantastic job and the team delivered them a very competitive car. It’s nice to have that feeling again which comes from having a car on pole, after such a long time, but we must not forget that what really counts is the race, because that is when the points are given out. Therefore we must all remain totally focussed on preparing for tomorrow’s race, bearing in mind how tough the Monza circuit can be in terms of reliability, which is still the crucial element in all races. It is very pleasing that this long-awaited pole has come at Monza and on a day when our President Luca di Montezemolo and his opposite number at Fiat, John Elkann were both here to witness it. Tomorrow we hope to be able to give them and all our fans something special."

Fernando Alonso: "Pole position at last! And it’s come at the best possible place, here in front of all the Ferrari fans! We managed to save two sets of new soft tyres for Q3 and so we were able to post a time immediately, before giving it absolutely everything on the second run. In fact, the time on the first run was good enough. The team and I have been without a pole for too long and two Ferraris in the top three is a fantastic result. At this track, the car really gets a hard time so we must try and keep all the parameters under control. We must make the most of this opportunity to bring home a lot of points: we will try and get a good start and tackle the first chicane as cleanly as possible, which is always difficult on the first lap. We needed this result: coming off the back of a weekend like Spa, which had raised some doubts about the car, but here it has improved a lot day after day. It would be nice to get a one-two tomorrow in front of our fantastic fans: I feel at home here, just like in Spain."

Felipe Massa: "Today I could have taken pole, but maybe in Q3, we did not adopt the best strategy. In Q2, my time on the soft tyres came on the third lap, so for the next part, we opted to do a series of three laps, but things did not go as we had wanted. Then on my second run, I did not manage to improve enough to take pole. All the same, it was a good qualifying and I am pleased with the performance of the car, which improved yet again today. We changed various things compared to yesterday morning which saw us become more competitive. I have never been very lucky at Monza, but tomorrow I will be starting from a good grid position. It is very motivating, especially when you see how happy are our fans, and it gives you a little bit extra. It would be nice to reward them for it..."

Chris Dyer: "A fantastic result, for the team, the drivers and for our championship chances. Both Felipe and Fernando were pleased with the handling of their car and we had no problems of any sort today. Both of them did a great job, setting a time at the right moment and being first and third is a just reward. It has been such a long wait to see one of our cars on pole and there could be no better place to do it than here at our home race. We know that usually, one of the F10’s strongest attributes is its race pace, therefore tomorrow we must try and consolidate today’s achievement. From what we have seen yesterday and today, there are no particular problems in terms of tyre life: maybe the hards struggle a bit more to get up to temperature, but we don’t expect to see anything different to usual in terms of strategy."

Jenson Button: “I’ve felt very happy all weekend running the higher of our two downforce packages. The car has felt very good and I’ve been comfortable with the stability of the rear. You know you’ll be competitive when you keep finding small increments of time here and there.

“Over a single lap, the car is good, but its real benefit will be felt in the race tomorrow, when we should have stronger long-run pace. We’re running more downforce than most people; that’ll make it more tricky over the first couple of laps, but we should be more consistent in the race.

“I want to say a big thank you to the whole team for bringing a great package to this weekend’s race. Our car is moving forwards all the time.

“It will be an incredible battle at the front tomorrow, but, starting from the front row, my aim must be for a victory. A win here would be very important; I’ve got the world championship trophy at home – and I want it to stay there!”

Lewis Hamilton: “I’m a little bit disappointed – it would appear that we took the wrong route by running without the F-duct this weekend. I just didn’t have the downforce today, and the car was sliding in the corners – I couldn’t push any harder because the car just wouldn’t give me any more.

“For tomorrow’s race, I’ll have good top speed, but the car is going to be sliding through the corners, so I won’t be able to follow closely enough through the corners to try and pass, so it’ll be tough.

“But I have to congratulate Jenson on doing a great job. Today wasn’t my best qualifying performance of the season, but we’ll still push like crazy tomorrow and fight for some good points from the third row. It looks like it’ll be a tough race.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “Today we saw a really strong qualifying lap from Jenson. He missed bagging what would have been McLaren’s 147th Formula 1 pole position by just a smidgen over a tenth of a second – and, when it’s that close, you’re inevitably just a little disappointed that you didn’t get pole. But Jenson will start from the front row tomorrow and will therefore be supremely well placed to mount a combative yet disciplined challenge for victory.

“Clearly, having been quick all weekend, Lewis had hoped for better than fifth place in qualifying. With hindsight, I think we sent him out just a little too close to Mark [Webber]. It’s always a tricky balancing act, because you want to send your drivers out so that they have a chance of getting a tow, but you don’t want to let them get so close to the cars they’re following that they encounter too much dirty air and therefore ‘wash out’ in the corners; I think that’s perhaps what happened to Lewis in Parabolica, hence his slightly disappointing time in sector 3.

“Having said all that, Lewis is every bit as focused on scoring heavily tomorrow as is Jenson, and those who know him [Lewis] won’t be surprised to hear me say that he’ll be aiming to make up places as soon as the five red lights go out on the startline gantry.”

Mark Webber: “I was pretty happy with today’s qualifying. It’s tight round here and trying to get it all together is not the easiest; when you’re pushing hard on the chicanes it’s easy to over cook them. The guys did a good job. We were up and down with the wing levels, but everyone’s in the same position trying to get the car set up in the best way for Monza. It didn’t help that we got the car back quite late after we stopped out on track in P3, but we stayed cool. I didn’t get many laps on the option tyre, but the engineers were able to look at what Sebastian found out on them and the team worked closely to give me some information, which helped me. The Ferraris are flying today; it should be a good race.”

Sebastian Vettel: “I’m a bit disappointed. We were very quick yesterday and had decent pace this morning too. I don’t know where the speed went this afternoon. I was around 3-4kph quicker yesterday than I was this afternoon with less fuel. There are a lot of straights in Monza, so it was quite costly. But we have a good race car, so let’s see what tomorrow brings. With high fuel it will be different around here and we’re seeing different approaches, for example McLaren is running one driver on lower wing and the other on higher wing, so we’ll see how it works on high fuel. It might be quite slippery at the beginning of the race. We’re not the fastest here, we know that, but we’ll see what we can do.”

Christian Horner, Team principal: “It was a fantastic last lap from Mark to get himself onto the second row ahead of Lewis. Unfortunately for Sebastian his second run in Q3 wasn’t quick enough to improve his position. But, at a circuit that we knew coming here was our worst of the Championship on paper, to be ahead of the Championship leader is a solid team performance. The one thing we all know about Monza is that it tends to produce exciting races, so we’re set for a fascinating race tomorrow.”

Fabrice Lom (Renault): ”We knew Monza would be a difficult race for us. Unfortunately we cost Mark some running time yesterday and today, so we apologise to him for that. Even so, Mark did an excellent job in qualifying. It’s a good result on this track which does not suit the strength of our car. Sebastian struggled more than Mark and was sixth. I think overall it’s not so bad, even though we didn’t get pole position at this race we’re confident we can do a good race tomorrow. With Hamilton not at the front, it could be an interesting result.”

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will start the Italian Grand Prix from seventh and 12th positions respectively tomorrow following today’s qualifying session at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

Nico Rosberg: "Seventh place is definitely the best performance that was possible for us today so both I and the team can be pleased with that. However we obviously want to be further up the grid so we shouldn’t get too used to being happy with such results. In race trim, we are probably a little stronger than in qualifying, so I can hopefully gain a place or two tomorrow if something happens amongst the top six guys, and look to achieve some good points."

Michael Schumacher: "I am obviously not very happy with our qualifying today but my position is probably what my car was giving me. We did not have a perfect balance, especially in some corners where the car was a bit loose, but then we did not come here expecting to achieve a great performance. However the race will be long tomorrow and having been welcomed so nicely by all of my Italian fans, I obviously wish to at least grab some points for them."

Ross Brawn: "The team and drivers have done a good job so far this weekend to get the most out of the car. It was a particularly good effort from Nico today to achieve seventh position with a strong run in Q3. We have a good high fuel set-up so we have done the work required for the race and can hope to pick up a place or two with both cars. Whilst we are not pushing the guys right at the front, we are maintaining our position just behind, and with our focus on 2011, that is our aim for the rest of this year."

Norbert Haug: "Nico extracted the performance that was possible from the car today and it was a good job from him and the team to put the car in seventh place behind the Ferrari, McLaren Mercedes and Red Bull cars. Michael was close to making Q3 and he will start from the sixth row and hopefully be in a position to make up places and finish in the points. It looks like it is going to be an interesting race as the top three qualifiers are not the three drivers currently leading the World Championship so I am sure there will be a big fight between the top six drivers and that may help Nico to gain position."

A well balanced Monza-specific aero package enabled the AT&T Williams team to make a positive start to the Italian GP this weekend, momentum that Nico Hulkenberg and Rubens Barrichello managed to carry through into qualifying this afternoon, putting both cars into the top ten for the fifth time this season. In the event, Nico was just piped to 7th place by a hundredth of a second, while Rubens closed out the top ten in tight session.

Nico Hulkenberg: It was a very, very positive qualifying and I really enjoyed driving here today – the car feels good, I really enjoy the track, so you might call it harmony! This gave me a lot of confidence and meant I was able to put in a mega lap in Q3, even though I could have been quicker in sector 1. Overall I am really pleased and I must thank the factory who developed a great aero package that works well on the straights for top speed, but is also perfectly balanced under cornering. This afternoon’s performance means I am now really looking forward to the prospect of the race tomorrow.

Rubens Barrichello: It’s been quite difficult for me to find an ideal set-up here despite the fact that at I am at home on this track as I won here last year. I think we hoped for better, around P7, which should have been possible, but we have not quite optimised our potential so far. However, the race still provides plenty of opportunity tomorrow and I am sure we have the possibility of a good result.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Nico has done an excellent job throughout all the practice and qualifying sessions this weekend. He’s starting the race in a good position to score points tomorrow. Rubens couldn’t get the same lap together as Nico this afternoon, so we’re looking through that now, but we expect both to be solid in the race tomorrow. We had no mechanical problems today.

Robert Kubica: We knew that the best we could hope for today in a normal qualifying session was P7 on the grid, but the battle was very tight with Mercedes and Williams. I managed to set a good time in Q2 and get through with just one run, so I saved a set of option tyres for the final session. On my first run, I was two tenths up on my best when I took the decision to pit, so that I would have time to do two timed laps on my final run and hopefully improve even more. But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to repeat my time - and I ended up two hundredths away from seventh. It’s not ideal, because the cars around us are very competitive on top speeds, but we know that it will be a long afternoon for everybody, so I hope we can make the most of any opportunities that come our way.

Vitaly Petrov: It was a tough qualifying session this afternoon with very small gaps between the cars around the top ten. Our car is not as competitive as at the last race, and I have been learning how to find the right rhythm, and get the most from the tyres, with this low level of downforce. As for the incident with Timo, I can only apologise to him if I held him up. I didn’t see him coming up behind me and didn’t see any blue flags as I came out of the pits. My grid penalty will make things even harder in the race but, as we saw in Spa, tomorrow is another day and a lot can still happen.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: Following on from a strong weekend in Spa, it’s clearly a bit of a disappointment to find ourselves ninth and 20th on the grid in Monza. We knew this circuit wouldn’t suit us as well as the last one, but we also clearly had the potential to do better in Q3 with Robert. Unfortunately, there is a big gap between our two cars, and both are behind each Mercedes, so it’s clearly not the most promising of positions to start from. But we are still looking forward to a good race, with strong, aggressive first laps and the right strategy, to at least finish in front of Mercedes.

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: It was another solid qualifying performance from Robert to once again make it into Q3 - something he has achieved at every race this season. If he had managed to repeat his time from Q2, he would have started seventh, but we know how tricky and inconsistent the cars can be to drive here. I am confident he can still have a strong race. As for Vitaly, he lost running time both yesterday and this morning with brake problems, which also recurred in a different form during qualifying. This has made it even more difficult for him to get to grips with the car in low downforce trim. He obviously has a difficult afternoon ahead of him tomorrow, compounded by his five-place grid penalty, and we will try and get him as close to the points as possible.