Team reaction after qualifying in Sepang (part 2)

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Sebastien Buemi: “I’m angry because I did not make the most of Q2. But there’s nothing I can do about it and so we will have to tackle the race from where we are. I started Q2 on full wets because we felt the conditions demanded it, but I stayed on track too long and then, after I came in and switched to the Intermediates, it was too late because the rain had started to get stronger again.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “When you look at what happened to some of the quicker guys, I would say this qualifying result is reasonably okay for me. However, maybe if I had come in earlier in Q2 to switch from full wets to intermediates, then maybe I could have had a chance of seeing Q3. If the conditions are similar to this tomorrow and I believe that is the forecast, then you never know what could happen, although personally I would prefer a dry race.”

Giorgio Ascanelli: "Malaysian rain is like English tea: it comes around five and it’s the same temperature. Seriously though, we got our tactics right in going out immediately in Q1. But in Q2, if we had more confidence in the forecast, we should have gone out earlier on Intermediates, but we thought it was too risky. We called Sebastien in at the right minute, but he did not come in and we missed the best slot. Jaime was very lucky not to run out of fuel in Q1 as he stayed out for one lap too long and in Q2, I would say he is pretty much where we would have expected. Therefore, something of a missed opportunity today.”

Lotus Cosworth

Saturday’s qualifying session saw Lotus Racing’s sunny faces beaming through the rain as another important milestone was achieved, with Heikki Kovalainen going into his first Q2 with the team and finishing 15th (1.52.270) after a clever strategy took advantage of the heavy rain that started falling just before the session began. Jarno Trulli (18th, 1.52.884) narrowly missed out on Q2 but was satisfied he did all he could in tricky conditions.

Heikki Kovalainen: “I’m so pleased! I really like these conditions – it’s very hard to judge your speed and you really have to take some risks, and all the time you’re feeling like you might lose the car, but that’s the challenge and I love it! On some parts of the track it was very wet and raining hard, and on others it wasn’t so much. Getting to Q2 really exceeds expectations for me and the whole team – yes of course we’ve been a little bit lucky today for sure, but it means we beat the other new teams, again! Although we were lucky, we played our strategy just right -if you look at the McLarens and Ferraris they didn’t think it was going to rain that much and look what happened. They missed their window at the beginning of the session and we took full advantage of it. Now I can’t wait to race tomorrow!”

Jarno Trulli: “It was disappointing because I was doing very well. Unfortunately on my quickest lap a car spun in front of me, which impeded me through the second and third sector so I couldn’t close my fast lap; and then the rain was getting worse, so there was no chance to improve on lap time. Still – we’ll do our best tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.”

Mike Gascoyne: “Obviously we’re all very very pleased to get a car into Q2 and Heikki did a tremendous job to get us there! I’m disappointed for Jarno as he got traffic on the lap that would have got him in. I think we got all the calls on the tyres right on the pit wall and in Q2 we ran the whole session on intermediates, which was clearly the thing to do. We made a change five minutes before the end, and Heikki got in a good clear lap to get P15. Well done to the whole team, and especially to Tony, for such success at one of our two home races – I know he’s very very proud.”

Tony Fernandes: “I’m speechless! What a day! To get 15th place in our home country, in front of our home crowd is amazing. I’m over the moon and just so excited. We gave the Toro Rossos a run for their money today and Jarno was just unfortunate to get blocked, otherwise he’d have been in Q2 as well. Tomorrow’s another day, and we’ll see what happens, but it’s a good step forward. Today we’ll enjoy it, and we’ll live for the day, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Virgin Racing enjoyed their first Q2 session in Qualifying today at a rain-soaked Sepang, in which Timo Glock secured 16th position. He will line up on the eighth row of the grid for the start of tomorrow’s 56 lap Malaysian Grand Prix with three world champions, two Ferraris and two McLarens in his mirrors.

On the other side of the garage it was a less happy tale for Lucas di Grassi. The team suspected a blocked filter in his VR-01 during this morning’s session and had to remove the rear end during the two sessions to investigate ahead of tomorrow’s race. The turnaround time being so tight, the car was still being put back together when the Qualifying hour got underway and there were heroic efforts from Lucas’ team to get the car out at all in Q1. This they managed four minutes from the end of the session, by which time the track was so wet that there was no way that Lucas would be able to establish a representative time against those who completed laps on Intermediates.

In this morning’s Free Practice 3 session the track was dry and Timo was able to do a couple of sessions using the Option tyre. He set the fastest lap so far of the new teams - 1:37.299 - which was only 3.757s away from the fastest lap of the session. Lucas also had a good session, completing 13 laps and setting his fastest time - a 1:38.783 - using the harder Prime tyre.

Timo Glock: “It’s been a very good weekend for us so far. We’ve had no real problems with the car and we’ve been able to do proper work during every session. Qualifying went quite smoothly considering the rain at the start of the session. It was critical to get out on time and my lap in Q1 was really good, getting me into Q2. It was good to see us do a better job than some of the top teams and as a result they will be starting behind us. Q2 wasn’t perfect though as we came in too early and that cost us the place against Heikki. In general though we have to be happy with what we have achieved today. It’s great for the team and there is now a lot of motivation for tomorrow. It looks like it could be a crazy race tomorrow, so we have to stay focused - and stay on the track - and we’ll see how it all ends.”

Lucas di Grassi: “Once more some problems affected us today and we had to rebuild parts of the car between Free Practice and Qualifying. It was touch and go whether we would even get the car out at all for Qualy, but the mechanics did an incredible job and because of that we were able to do at least a couple of laps to make sure the car was working well. While it has been a disappointing day for me personally, it has been a good day for the team so we all have to be pleased for that. We look forward to the race tomorrow and hope that brings better things, including achieving our target of finishing our first race.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “Today has been a great day for everyone involved in Virgin Racing - a clear step forward for the team. P3 this morning was yet another smooth session with both cars, during which we continued set-up work with encouraging results. Despite still not running Qualifying fuel loads, it was nice to again demonstrate the underlying potential of this car and its unique design process. At the end of P3 we were unhappy with the consistency of fuel pressure on Lucas’ car and we elected to perform a very challenging fuel filter change before Qualifying in order to maximise our chances on Sunday. Lucas’ crew did a great job in getting the car out to record at least some timed laps in Q1. I’m just sorry for Lucas that we didn’t get him out at the beginning of the session when the track was drier. Timo continued to demonstrate our potential in Q1 and whilst some of our more experienced competitors elected to stay in the garage at the optimum time, Timo made it through to Q2. The Q2 session was tricky. We were running with all our weather prediction services warning us of an imminent downpour, so unfortunately we ran our last set of Intermediates a little bit early, which costs us a place. Looking at our times from earlier today though, that won’t matter in the race.”

McLaren Mercedes

Jenson Button: “We thought the first rainstorm was it, and there was nothing else coming, so we waited. I guess events proved it was the wrong thing to do.

“My first lap on Inters felt okay. The thing is, you get no real warning; the first sector of the lap was quite dry, then you get to the fast left-right and it’s really wet. I just aquaplaned off and got stuck in the gravel. I couldn’t do anything about it. I just hope I haven’t damaged anything on the car because I was sat in the gravel with the engine running for some time, hoping to get pulled out.

“It was a strange, disappointing session – both Lewis and I went out early. But, even so, I’m in front of three of my world championship rivals on tomorrow’s grid, and I suppose that’s the best way of looking at it.

Lewis Hamilton: “This was just one of those days. It had been a very good weekend for us up until qualifying started, and the simple fact is that we didn’t expect it to rain any more. We went out at a similar time to the other top teams, and as a result quite a lot of us were all out of luck.

“By the time I got out there, there were lots of yellow flags about, so you just couldn’t nail it – and then it started to rain more heavily. You couldn’t feel a thing –, it was so, so slippery. It was easy to come off – I had a spin on my first lap, in fact – but I did the best job I could in the circumstances.

“I’d been fastest all weekend, but what can we do? We’ve just got to shrug it off. And, as I always, say, I’ll never give up. That’s why I’m not only focusing on the fast cars around me, I’m focusing on everyone – including those who are quite a few rows in front of me.

“So I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and I’m going to race my heart out.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “To qualify only 17th and 20th with what today’s final practice session had clearly demonstrated was a highly competitive car was of course very disappointing for all concerned.

“So why did it happen? It happened because several teams, having consulted the weather radar, believed that the rain that was falling just prior to the start of Q1 would pass through and that the end of Q1 would be therefore by much drier. As we now know, it didn’t turn out like that. With hindsight it would therefore have been better if we’d sent our cars out at the beginning of Q1, instead of waiting for what the weather radar had told us would be drier and faster conditions.

“Having said all that, we’re now looking forward to a very exciting and hopefully very eventful race in which Jenson and Lewis, who are two of the most determined racers in the sport today, can produce a result for us that’s significantly better than our qualifying performance this afternoon.”

Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali: “We are very disappointed with the way qualifying went. We made an error of judgement in trusting the weather forecast: when we went out on track the rain, rather than dying down, suddenly got even stronger. With hindsight, it is easy to say we should have gone out immediately. It’s a real shame because all the signs were that we could have done well and now we will have to prepare for an uphill fight in the race. But there’s no point in crying about things before they have even happened, because the race is not until tomorrow. And as we saw today, anything could happen. We will try and pick up as many points as possible, making the most of any opportunity that presents itself.”

Fernando Alonso: “We were expecting the rain to stop and that’s why we stayed in the garage longer than the others. When we went out, in fact the conditions got worse and even on the extreme wets, we were unable to improve our time. Rain might make things more spectacular, but the session just turns into a lottery. Today, it went badly for us and we found ourselves in the wrong place – the track – at the wrong time. However, the result of qualifying is only worth the paper on which it is written, because the points are assigned at the end of the race. Of course, starting from the back puts us in a difficult position but, as we saw last Sunday in Melbourne, anything can happen and we have to trust in our abilities. We must do our best to bring home a points finish.”

Felipe Massa: “We are very sorry about what happened. We waited a bit before going out, because it was raining hard and the forecast was for an improvement, however we found ourselves out on track where there was more water than predicted. We made a mistake and we were caught out by the weather forecast. Now we must do our best for tomorrow’s race. It will be tough, as always when you start from the back of the grid, but we will have to try and score at least a few points. It’s hard to say whether it’s better to hope for rain or sunshine: maybe with the former there might be more chance of the tables being turned, but it’s equally true that there are more chances of ending up out of the race.”

Chris Dyer: “Obviously, we are very disappointed. Yesterday, we did a good job of preparing for the weekend and this morning, the F10 was clearly very competitive in the dry and we therefore hoped for a good result this afternoon. The way the weather changed caught us on the back foot. An improvement had been predicted up to the end of Q1 and, in those circumstances it made sense to go out in the late stages. We went out at the mid point and after a few laps, some of them spoiled by yellow flags, the rain got heavier and we could no longer improve our performance, even if Fernando got very close right at the end. A real shame, as tomorrow’s race now becomes a case of damage limitation because of our grid positions. All the same, we are confident that we have a competitive car and we also have faith in our drivers, therefore we will try and make the most of this situation.”

HRT F1 Cosworth

Having never run its car in full wet track conditions before the start of the season, HRT F1 team today competed in the third qualifying session of its short F1 history. The team’s two drivers will start from 22nd and 23rd on the grid, just behind Alonso, Hamilton and Massa.

In the third morning free practice session they added 35 laps to yesterday’s strong day of running. They posted laps in 1.39.868 - 6.3s away from Webber’s pace at the front (1.33.542).

Bruno Senna: "It’s been a bit of a difficult day. Conditions were very tough and it was our first experience of these conditions. I covered five laps before sliding off on the very wet track and unfortunately the engine stalled. Luckily I could go out of the gravel, going back to the garage and do more laps after it."

Karun Chandhok: "I will start tomorrow’s race just behind Trulli, Alonso, Hamilton and Massa. The weather was not looking good in the afternoon before qualifying and I was not sure if it would hold until the qualifying session as well. It didn’t and that gave us our first wet experience driving the car for the first time in heavy rain. I made the best of it."

Colin Kolles: "Having never run the car in the wet before this weekend, HRT F1 team was taking a gamble with this wet weather for both cars. Without pre-season testing it is a big challenge to go out and drive in really wet conditions like today. Let’s see what the weather brings during the race tomorrow."