Team reaction after qualifying in Singapore (part 2)

Kamui Kobayashi made it into the top ten qualifying for the fourth time this year. The Japanese qualified tenth for the Singapore night race. His new team mate, Nick Heidfeld, who drove the C29 in Singapore for the very first time, qualified 15th.

Kamui Kobayashi: “I am very happy. I managed to do a couple of good laps in qualifying. In free practice on Friday I didn’t find it easy. For me the track was new and it obviously is a challenging one, as well as a special one with the heat and the lights. But I also wasn’t happy with the car in free practice. The team did a great job in improving it, so in qualifying it was good and I think my result is the best we could achieve today.“

Nick Heidfeld: “I am not completely happy. I hoped for more and I think I didn’t get the most out of the car. But perhaps this wasn’t realistic considering the fact I only drove this car yesterday for the very first time with these tyres. There is a lot to learn and I’m sure we will be benefitting from it soon. I’m not too pessimistic for the race, because the long runs in free practice under race conditions were quite good. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.“

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “For Nick it was the first qualifying in this car and with these tyres, neither of which he knew. The result is okay. Tenth for Kamui was a surprise for all of us after the first three practice sessions. Congratulations for a great result! This was the “overture” to Kamui’s home race in Japan in two weeks time.”

James Key, Technical Director: “Overnight we made several set-up changes to the car, with these mostly being mechanical to try to improve the balance we had yesterday, which seemed to be inconsistent for both drivers. There was an improvement to the cars this morning, but we still had a few issues on Kamui’s car to address. That was dealt with for qualifying. Nick was happier with the car but was struggling a bit with traction, which, as well as the kerbs, has been our biggest problem. We weren’t too sure where we were after third free practice. Kamui put in an outstanding lap in Q2 to make it into the top ten qualifying. It was always going to be tough to do that here today, but he extracted the full potential out of the car and the tyres, so it was a great lap. For Nick it was fairly close, but he only had a single lap to get his time because he had a problem on his first lap. He had to learn incredibly quickly this weekend, so the way he got back into qualifying after such a long time was a good job. We saw great work from the team and a fantastic lap from Kamui. I expect we can fight for points tomorrow.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “It’s a shame I didn’t quite make it to Q3 in the end, because overall, my weekend has gone well right from the start. I don’t think we can be unhappy with what we have achieved and I am pleased with this performance, also because the team has made a good step forward with the car. I am surprised to be this high up the grid, because in today’s free practice we had a problem with the car set-up, but we were able to correct it for qualifying. After what was my best performance of the season, I would like to send my best wishes to my regular chief mechanic Alberto Gavarini who is back home in Italy, having had a road accident. This is a very demanding track physically, with the heat and the fact there are no long straights to give you breathing space, but I feel good and I am looking forward to tomorrow’s race, as I think this is the best chance we have to score points, especially as the car is better balanced in race trim than it was for qualifying, so we can be optimistic.”

Sebastien Buemi: “Qualifying did not go well for me today and I seemed to be stuck in traffic on every lap and the one clear lap I got was spoilt by yellow flags. The main problem I had was a serious lack of grip. Jaime did a very good lap whereas this morning I was going better than him, so I am not really sure what happened, but obviously, I am disappointed. As for the race, overtaking is never easy on a track like this, but fourteenth on the grid is not a disaster. It is a long race here, so if we don’t make any mistakes, have a good strategy and the pit stop goes well, then who knows what we might be able to achieve in the way of a result. It will also be tough physically, so it will be important to be well hydrated.”

Giorgio Ascanelli: “Jaime missed out on Q3 by what I estimate was two milliseconds per corner! I think the team has done a good job and, first in Monza and now here, the car has made a step forward. That is not because of new developments, but rather that we have worked out how to run it better. The drivers did a decent job and Jaime drove fantastically well: he could have made Q3 but he still has a bit to learn, in terms of managing to get the most out of the car and therefore set his time on the first lap of a run, although I am sure it will come for him soon. This is our best qualifying performance of the season, so I cannot be unhappy and for tomorrow, we should have a good race pace, particularly with Jaime.”

The Force India F1 Team had a difficult time under the lights of the Marina Bay circuit in today’s qualifying session in Singapore. Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi eased through to Q2, however the second segment proved more problematic. Adrian’s outing was compromised with traffic on his outlap and, with his tyres not up to optimum temperature, could only record the 16th quickest time. Tonio put in a good first run but reported an issue with the front brakes on his second. The Italian posted the 17th quickest time.

Adrian Sutil: It was a very frustrating session for us overall. The first segment went OK, out on the hard tyres and able to get in the top ten, but then when we switched to the soft for Q2 we couldn’t find much of an improvement. We had less grip than on the hard tyre and I got into some traffic on my outlap and the flying lap was compromised. It just all went wrong so I’m disappointed. It’s going to be tough tomorrow as overtaking is hard but if there’s a safety car or anything unexpected we’ll do our best to take advantage of it.

Tonio Liuzzi: A very disappointing outcome to the session for us. We had the pace in Q1 but then in Q2 on the first lap of my second run I had problems with the front brakes. It was very strange as we’ve not had this problem over this weekend. Unfortunately because of this issue I lost the best of the tyres on what would have been a better lap. We will start at least 16th after the penalties to some of the others in front but we will have to hope for something to happen during the race that we can take advantage of as it’s very hard to overtake here.

Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer: Overall it’s not been a great day for us. We were expecting more based on the form we showed yesterday and the general balance of the car, but we hit a couple of problems that took us by surprise in Q2. We start further down the field than we would have hoped so we will have to look at all possible strategies for tomorrow’s race. As we’ve seen in previous years anything can happen with the walls so close so we still hope to be able to make up some ground.

For the start of the third free practice session for tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix, the circuit was still damp after an earlier downpour, so the track was declared wet, allowing the engineers the possibility of running the installation lap on wet tyres.

The drivers reported that the track would soon be dry enough for slicks, and after a short period of inactivity, both proceeded to set some competitive times in a session which clearly showed that the performance gap to the new teams is continuing to fall. Timo set the best time of the new teams, despite being unhappy with the car’s balance on the softer Option tyre, and Lucas’s fastest lap was compromised by a yellow flag, so the team was confident of a solid performance in qualifying.

For the first run of qualifying, Lucas went out on the Prime tyre, while Timo chose Options. Timo set the fastest "new teams" lap and then Q1 was effectively split into two sessions when the Ferrari of Felipe Massa caused the session to be red flagged. For the second run both drivers chose Options, and it was in the very last seconds of the session that Heikki Kovalainen managed to split the Virgin Racing pair.

Timo Glock: “I’m very happy with our performance today, both as a team and from my point of view. The car was not easy to drive but I got everything I could out of it today. We were using the soft tyre a little too hard, especially at the rear, so maybe if it had stayed consistent we could have squeezed another tenth or two out of the car. Overall though a good performance to be the best of the new teams once more and now I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I really like this circuit, especially when the conditions are drying, so I hope for a similar track in the race and we will see what we can do.”

Lucas di Grassi: “A very good qualifying performance from us, with me finishing in front of one Lotus. Even though I missed out on one of the practice sessions it feels like my best qualifying of the year. It’s a very difficult track so every time I get in the car I’m still improving, a tenth here, half a tenth there. I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

John Booth: “A very satisfying day. Both car crews worked well to solve the issues of yesterday and tune the car balance for qualifying despite the tricky conditions today. Timo has been on top form all weekend and put in a great qualifying session to head the new teams throughout. Lucas also did a great job to make up for lost time yesterday and was unlucky to be pipped by Kovalainen right at the end. Both cars have run reliably this weekend and we look forward to an exciting race tomorrow.

Qualifying under the lights at the Singapore Grand Prix saw traffic play a big part in Q1, which ended with Lotus Racing drivers Heikki Kovalainen in 19th and Jarno Trulli 21st.

Heikki Kovalainen: “Qualifying today was quite difficult to be honest. The traffic made it really tricky as there were cars on slow laps when I was on a quick one, and I think I missed my best opportunity on the second set of tyres which were brand new. I gave it my best shot, and I think the last lap was about as good as I could have done today, so at least I split the Virgins and got pretty close to Timo. It’s still game on for tomorrow, and I think we’re in good shape for the race, so we’ll see what happens.”

Jarno Trulli: “I’m pretty disappointed with how it went tonight. This morning’s practice was pretty good but on the first run in qualifying on the options I couldn’t find any real grip so I switched to the primes. I think I got the most out of the car I could by the end of Q1 - braking obviously plays a big role here, and I’ve been struggling with the rear end locking all weekend, so I hope it improves tomorrow.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “A pretty disappointing qualifying session today. Jarno has not been happy with the balance on the tyres all weekend and that carried through to qualifying. Heikki was generally happier on the option tyre but unfortunately he was held up on what would have been his quickest lap. Despite that I think the race pace of the car is strong and we look forward to a better performance in the race tomorrow.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “I don’t think we got the best out the car today, but it is what it is. Honestly, I’m reasonably happy, as I thought we might not have been quite as close to Timo as we ended up – he goes very well here and I think that if the traffic hadn’t played its part Heikki might have been able to get past him. As development on this year’s car stopped back in July and we put our resources into the 2011 car, we always knew the competition would become closer as the season drew to an end, with our closest rivals continuing to bring upgrades to each race. With that in mind, the fact that Heikki is as close as he is to Timo means we can not be too disappointed. Jarno also did a good job today, after a tricky weekend for him on a track he does not favour, and they are both pumped up to fight tomorrow, so there’s all to play for in the race.”

Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team completed its first night-time qualifying session today in Singapore. Christian Klien will start his first race with the Spanish team from 22nd position, and Bruno Senna qualified 23rd. Both drivers were able to clock their best times of the weekend so far. Before, in the third practice session, both drivers covered 16 laps each at the wheel of the car and kept on gaining experience in Singapore. Bruno Senna ended up 23rd (1.55.367) and Christian Klien finished 24th (1.54.826).

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “Today we are quite happy with the qualifying result. Christian Klien got more and more used to the car and felt more comfortable than yesterday. He could improve continuously all over the weekend and due to traffic on his fastest lap in third practice, he could even have done better. He did a very good job. Bruno Senna could use the option and prime tyres well and was pushing very hard today. I am sure he will show a good performance again during the race. Tomorrow is going to be a tough as it is very hot and humid here and the drivers need to be very concentrated not to do a mistake.”

Christian Klien, Race driver: “It’s great to be back and I am very happy about my qualifying result from today. I was a bit nervous before the session but then I was completely concentrated on doing the best lap time possible. I could improve constantly during the weekend and we achieved our aim completely. We are ready for anything that can happen tomorrow, and I hope to achieve a good result again.”

Bruno Senna, Race driver: “It was hard to drive today. In the third practice, we had understeer and in qualifying, it changed to oversteer. But tomorrow is another day and we hope that the track conditions will improve again. We are trying to do better tomorrow and I am looking forward to my first night race.”