Team reaction after qualifying in Valencia (part 2)

Mercedes GP

After a promising start to the European Grand Prix weekend, there was disappointment for the Mercedes GP team in Valencia today as Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified in 12th and 15th positions for tomorrow’s race.

In the first qualifying session, Nico completed one run with Michael having two outings on the prime tyre for the pair to progress in ninth and 12th places respectively. Both drivers started on the option tyre in Q2 but switched to the prime for their second run where Nico’s lap was quick enough only for 12th place whilst Michael hit traffic and finished in 15th position.

Nico Rosberg: “It’s very frustrating to be so far back on the grid although my lap was good today. There was just no more performance to get out of the car. We had a few issues this morning so we had to make a compromise on our upgrade package and that made the difference of being in the top ten. It’s not easy to understand what happened as we hoped to take a step forward here but we haven’t got the best of our updates yet and we need to understand the tyres quickly. The car will be stronger in the race so we stay positive and see what will happen.”

Michael Schumacher: “Obviously I am disappointed with my position today and it is certainly not where I want to be. I had to fight with two things. Firstly, as in Canada we have a general problem with the tyres and we can’t get them to work in qualifying. Secondly, I had some difficulties with the brakes and I was locking the front right all the time. This made things extra difficult and is something we need to understand. However our new updates are definitely an advantage, although this was not evident in the performance. I could have gone maybe three-tenths quicker on my last lap if Buemi had not been in the way but it would still not have been enough for Q3. But we are fighters and we know this sport long enough. Our starts are good and with more fuel on board, things do not look so bad. We will certainly try to make the best out of our situation tomorrow.”

Ross Brawn: “Clearly that was a difficult qualifying session. After Montreal, we thought that we understood our issues with the tyres but they are still proving to be a challenge. The team and drivers did as well as they could today but we do not have the pace at the moment and we are not making the tyres work well, particularly in qualifying. We are pushing very hard to develop the car and sometimes in pushing so hard, you trip over. We need to reflect, assess and see what our next steps should be.”

Norbert Haug: “It is a disappointing qualifying result today for our team. Of course it was very tight, but if you are six-tenths slower than the best lap time, then you end up in twelfth place like Nico. Michael hit traffic in the last sector of his fastest lap which prevented him from improving further. We will certainly not give up on improving our package as we have done continuously since the season began but our competitors have been doing the same. Our race pace tomorrow should be better.”

Force India Mercedes

The Force India F1 Team will start tomorrow’s European Grand Prix from 13th with Adrian Sutil and 14th with Tonio Liuzzi after a frustrating qualifying session.

Both VJM03s had been performing well throughout the weekend, with both Adrian and Tonio finishing the earlier practice session inside the top eight. The pair started qualifying well, making one run on the prime tyres, with Tonio posting the 11th quickest time and Adrian the 15th to pass easily into Q2. A switch to the option tyres did not however produce the anticipated improvement in pace and despite putting together clean laps, frustratingly neither Adrian nor Tonio could progress through into Q3.

Adrian Sutil: This morning the car felt really good and I could push on both the prime and the option tyres, and it showed in the time I was able to do. But in Q2 I had a clean lap but the grip just didn’t seem to be there. Over the whole session it was so hard and we couldn’t get the tyres to work - such a big difference from the morning session. It’s obviously very disappointing as we looked very strong here and we didn’t change much from this morning. I’m now concentrating on the race - we had a good event here last year and, as we saw in Montreal, our race pace is very strong so there’s always opportunities to make up positions.

Tonio Liuzzi: This morning we were really quick and it didn’t start too badly in Q1 for us so we were very positive about getting a good result. But it got very hot this afternoon, perhaps seven or eight degrees hotter than in free practice this morning, and it seemed to have a big effect on the tyres. Both Adrian and myself had big issues with the soft tyres in Q2 and had a lot of understeer. It’s a real shame as both yesterday and this morning we were looking very competitive and we had hoped for more. But we’re not giving up as there are so many possibilities in the race - just look at Montreal where we had the accident at the start, but fought to the end and still picked up two points.

Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal: It’s been a disappointing day as we showed a genuine pace this morning and couldn’t quite deliver this afternoon. It’s something to work on tonight and come back strong in the race tomorrow. We’ve shown good pace here before and in fact last year we started 12th and 16th and finished 10th and 12th in the race so there’s still everything to work towards.

Sauber Ferrari

Pedro de la Rosa: “Sixteenth doesn’t look great, but I must say I am quite happy with what we did in qualifying. In Q1 especially our performance was really good. We improved the car after free practice and the changes paid off. We pushed hard and I think we got the best out of the package. There are limits. I think the track conditions favoured the
harder tyre compound. The prime tyres were really good. With the softer option tyres I had a lack of grip and was sliding too much.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “I am very disappointed after having been out so early in qualifying. My first run on the prime tyres was okay, and when we changed to the option tyres I was expecting a lot more from them for the second run, but there was no extra grip. Anyway I didn’t exploit
the potential because on my first flying lap with the softer tyres I locked the front wheels, which resulted in them being flat spotted. That’s why I felt vibrations in the car and this ruined my second flying lap. It is a shame.“

James Key, Technical Director: “It was a disappointing qualifying, but incredibly close. The grip level seemed to be quite inconsistent, and unfortunately it wasn’t possible for Kamui to get through to the second part of qualifying. He flat spotted the front tyres and was therefore not able to put the best sector times together, which seemed to be tricky today on the option tyres.
Pedro did quite a good job in Q1 where he was 13th. He then began Q2 on the prime tyres and switched to the option tyres for the second run, but again a lack of grip and a balance difference between the two compounds seemed to be the problem.
Unfortunately he couldn’t improve his lap time, and again the sectors tell a slightly different story. But that’s where we are this weekend, so we have to improve.”

Lotus Cosworth

Lotus Racing’s European Grand Prix Qualifying session ended with Jarno Trulli in 19th and team-mate Heikki Kovalainen in 20th, comfortably ahead of their fellow new teams, and, again, a respectable distance from the midfield. With Colin Chapman’s son Clive in the garage, in Spain to help the team celebrate the 500th Grand Prix Lotus has competed in, the team will be satisfied with a good performance in the Mediterranean heat, and will be looking to carry the good reliability they have enjoyed on track in Valencia through to tomorrow’s race, aiming to bring both cars home in what should be an exciting race.

Jarno Trulli: 20 laps, best time 1.41.428, 20th / Qualifying: 19th, 1.40.658, 11 laps “I’m feeling quite a lot happier now - things have been getting better all weekend now I have the new chassis, and as I’ve not had any real problems I’ve been able to work on the setup, which obviously helped today. I do still have a bit of an issue with the brakes, but it feels like a new start from where I’ve been and I’m pleased with the performance today. We are another step ahead of the teams behind and I think we’ll be ok tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen: 19 laps, best time 1.41.303, 19th / Qualifying: 20th, 1.40.882, 11 laps “It was a little disappointing for me out there today. I didn’t feel as comfortable as I did yesterday, when I was very happy with the car. Today it seems I had to fight the car a bit, and I really had to attack to get some good times. But it’s ok. I’m not too worried, and tomorrow I will push again and try to bring the car home to the end of the race.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “I’m very pleased with Qualifying today – it was a very solid effort from the whole team. We were actually 2.5 seconds off the quickest time in Q1, and percentage wise that’s our best performance of the year so far. We’ve moved further away from the competition behind us, so overall it was a very solid performance, with the whole team continuing to move forward. Now we’ll have to match that with a two car finish in the race tomorrow.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “There’s a lot of good points that have come out of today – the main one is that we’ve finished quite comfortably ahead of Virgin and HRT, and it was great to hear Jarno happy over the radio – his new chassis looks like it may have brought about a change in luck, so let’s hope that continues tomorrow. Our engineers tell me we’ve taken another step forward today, and hopefully we’ll get even more out of the new Cosworth engine in the race - it’s very encouraging to see the performance of both of the Cosworth powered Williams cars today, so hopefully we can keep pushing like them and get both cars home tomorrow.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Virgin Racing enjoyed a positive Qualifying session in Valencia today, in which the order of fastest driver was reversed for the first time this season. Lucas di Grassi posted the faster of the two times, while Timo’s lap was compromised by a mistake out of the last corner of the Valencia Street Circuit during his final run.

In this morning’s Free Practice 3 session, both drivers completed their evaluation programmes as planned. They improved steadily as the session went on, Timo and Lucas being classified 21st and 22nd respectively, but within striking distance of our main rivals and with a comprehensive set of tyre and handling information to allow evaluation of strategy for both Qualifying and the Race.

This afternoon they traded positions and Lucas will be starting tomorrow’s European Grand Prix alongside Timo on the clean side of the grid.

Lucas di Grassi, Race Driver: “I’m very happy to be the fastest Virgin Racing driver today. This is my debut year in F1 and I’ve been learning a lot with each Grand Prix. I’ve been getting closer to Timo’s lap times and to be able to keep pace with someone with his ability and experience is a good measure of the progress I feel I am making. Your team-mate is always your easiest comparison but we are not fighting each other - we are working together to make Virgin Racing the best of the new teams. We have a lot of work to do to improve the car and our pace, so while I’m very pleased with the result today, that is where our focus lies.”

Timo Glock, Race Driver: “Unfortunately we made the wrong decision with the tyres today. We thought things would work out with the Option tyre with a small set-up change, but I had one run on Primes and they were definitely much quicker. Unfortunately I made a mistake out of the last corner and lost around 0.5 secs, otherwise I would have been quicker than Lucas and closer to the Lotus cars. Now we have to look at the opportunities for the Race tomorrow.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “Lucas and his engineers continued to have a smooth weekend and he did a good job in Qualifying. I think he’s having a great rookie year so far. Timo wasn’t happy with some overnight set-up changes on our new development parts, and that made the tyre comparison in FP3 harder to judge. We successfully went back to the Friday settings for Qualifying, but the choice of the Option tyre for his first run was incorrect and he didn’t get the most out of his last run on Primes. As ever, we’ll be chasing a two-car finish in the Race tomorrow.”

HRT F1 Cosworth

Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna qualified their Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team cars 23rd and 24th respectively for tomorrow’s European Grand Prix at the Valencia Street Circuit. Both drivers were able to run faster than in yesterday´s sessions and improved their times. Karun Chandhok did a best lap time of 1.42.600 and Bruno Senna clocked a best time of 1.42.851. Before, in this morning’s third and last practice session, the Spanish team ran 37 more laps through the streets of Valencia without any problems.

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “We expected more than the result we did today. Even if we could fix the problems we had on both cars yesterday, unfortunately, we couldn’t perform as well as we did in the races before. The lap times of the new teams are close and if you do a small mistake on a street circuit like this, you get pushed back on the grid. But we will be well prepared for tomorrow’s race and we hope to fight for positions with the other teams again. ”

Karun Chandhok, Race driver: “I am very pleased with how it went today. We had a far more productive practice session this morning and played a lot with the electronic settings on my car which was very useful for qualifying. My fastest lap was pretty good - it’s never neat and tidy around here but I think I got the maximum from the car this afternoon. The temperature is expected to be quite high again tomorrow so it will be a tough race for the cars, tyres and drivers. Our race pace has generally been good so I am looking forward to a long race tomorrow.”

Bruno Senna, Race driver: “It was a difficult qualifying session today when the track improved a bit. But I didn’t get my lap together and I lost a lot of time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t end up with a better result than this. But it is going to be a long race tomorrow and I hope to do a better job then.”