Team reaction after qualifying in Abu Dhabi (part 1)

Sebastian Vettel: “I’m happy – it was a great lap and I’m proud of it. It was a very tight qualifying session and it’s even more thrilling when you know there’s tension going into it and you know ‘this is it’. We only did one run in Q3, so only one chance. We probably did more laps than the others, but we only used one set of tyres. Looking back I was surprised by how much the circuit ramped up at the end and maybe it would have been better to do two runs, but what we did was enough for pole. The car was fantastic today, much better than yesterday evening, so I think we made a step forward. I think we achieved the maximum we could today. Hopefully we will have a good start tomorrow and a good first lap and then it’s a long race from there – so let’s see what we can do.”

Mark Webber: “I’m not rapped to be fifth on the grid, it’s disappointing, but there’s still a long way to go tomorrow – the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. I would like to have been further up, but I couldn’t get the pace. We need to be there at the end of tomorrow’s race and a lot can still happen; I haven’t helped things today, but the Championship’s not decided today. I didn’t seem to have the grip the other guys had and I need to have a look where I was losing time. We will just have to do the best job we can tomorrow, it’s a long
race – we’re still in the hunt and that’s the main thing.”

Christian Horner: “That was a very exciting last session; Sebastian completed an excellent lap on his second timed to get pole. It was always going to a tricky choice with how many laps to do in the last session and both drivers decided that they wanted to do more than two. It was ultimately the choice of Sebastian and Mark to do three and four laps respectively. Mark ended up P5 unfortunately today and so is going to need a good start and a good race tomorrow. Today has set up a scintillating grid for the final race of the year.”

Fabrice Lom (Renault): “It’s the last qualifying of the year, so it’s time to do some statistics: First, it’s our 15th pole, so we have equalled the world record of pole positions achieved by a team in one year. And secondly, the Red Bull drivers are the only two to get through to Q3 at every race this year.
To talk about today, as a team we had our glory when we won the Constructors’ World Championship at the last race, and now it’s down to the two men. We will let them battle while trying to do the best job possible to not interfere with their performance. Today Seb won the qualifying battle – he’s first and Mark is fifth. Now it’s down to the race tomorrow, I think it will be very interesting to watch.”

Lewis Hamilton: “I’m absolutely delighted – this is my best qualifying performance since Spa, and I pushed as hard as I could and got everything and more out of the car. To be just three-hundredths off the fastest Red Bull is extremely good news for the team.
We’ve worked incredibly hard all year, but we couldn’t quite catch them up quickly enough. Even so, to be right behind the one on pole – and have both Ferraris behind – is a great achievement.
On the grid tomorrow, I don’t have to worry about who’s around me – they all have to worry about who’s around them! I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. It’s the other drivers who’ll have to worry; I don’t have to be cautious at all in the race. Perhaps they need to think about that…
Both Jenson and I qualified well today, so this is good news for us in the battle for second place in the constructors’ world championship. I’d love for us to finish one-two tomorrow – that would be a real high for the whole team.
I’m not focusing on winning the drivers’ title; I’m just focusing on winning this race.”

Jenson Button: “We’ve been tweaking the car all weekend, and we made a big leap from where we were yesterday, so I’m happy with the way things improved.
Qualifying was also very good. I’d been struggling with a major brake vibration issue during Q1, but it got better through Q2 and Q3. The vibration didn’t help my front locking issues, but at least they were better than I’d had in the past couple of races.
I made a mistake and ran wide on my last lap, so it’s a little disappointing to be starting fourth because I could have been even higher, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s race. All the cars appear to be reasonably close, so it should be a good battle.
My aim is to get as many points as I can tomorrow – we want to secure second place in the constructors’ world championship, and that’ll be our aim for tomorrow.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “Both Lewis and Jenson drove superbly in qualifying today, and will line up second and fourth on tomorrow’s grid as a result.
In fact Lewis missed out on bagging pole position by just three-hundredths of a second – and inevitably you’re always just a smidgen disappointed when it’s as close as that at the front.
Nevertheless, his goal tomorrow will be a unilateral one: to score 25 world championship points.
He’s well placed to do just that – and, as ever, he’ll be pushing just as hard as he knows how. He’ll have a competitive race car tomorrow, and in our view he’ll be in decent shape to deliver the win we need.
Jenson, too, is well placed to score heavily, and thereby consolidate Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’s second place in the constructors’ world championship.
So I reckon tomorrow has all the ingredients to be one of the most thrilling days in the history of Formula 1, and I’m sure that trackside spectators and TV viewers alike will be on the edges of their seats during what promises to be a truly dramatic sporting occasion.”

One car on the second row and one on the third: that was the outcome of the final qualifying session of 2010 for Scuderia Ferrari . Fernando Alonso was third fastest in Q3, Felipe Massa sixth at the end of a very closely contested session.

Stefano Domanicali: “Overall, we can claim to be satisfied with this result, especially in terms of the Drivers’ classification. Fernando did a great lap on his final run, while unfortunately, Felipe had so much traffic on his out lap that he was not in the best of shapes when starting his final timed lap, so that he even decided to abort it and pit early. Tomorrow we can expect a very long and difficult race. The key parameters will be the same as always – reliability, the start, strategy, team work and the drivers’ ability at the wheel – but more than ever before, tomorrow afternoon, the main thing will be to keep a cool head. We have to stay concentrated on our work: if we can put together another perfect day, then we will have the opportunity to reach the target we have set our sights on.”

Fernando Alonso: “After a good Friday, during which we worked on the set-up, today along came a good Saturday, in which we secured a good grid position, especially in terms of where our main title rival finds himself on the grid. Now, we need one more day at this level and that should bring us closer to our objective. It was an important qualifying session, but you cannot call it decisive, because the race is tomorrow. Reliability and team work will make the difference, as is usually the case. The start? We will see what happens in first ten or twenty metres and then decide if it will be best to attack or wiser to defend. We have to keep in the mind that the world championship definitely does not get won at the first corner, but there is a chance of losing it there. We knew we could expect a difficult weekend, with Red Bull being strong as ever and McLaren at a very high level. Having only Vettel ahead of me, rather than both Red Bulls is positive. It was a very closely contested session, with the order changing all the time. Our first run in Q3 was not the best, because we had problems with traffic, but we knew we had the potential to do better and that’s how it turned out: I started the lap, also thinking about saving the tyres for the final sector so as to avoid the risk of getting there and finding myself in trouble. I am confident for tomorrow but I want to repeat one more time that, however it ends up tomorrow afternoon, it has been a great year for me at Scuderia Ferrari, where we enjoy a very special atmosphere together.”

Felipe Massa: “On my last out lap, I came up behind so much traffic and it was all very confusing, especially as Hamilton, who was ahead of me, had slowed a lot at Turn 14. At the end of the session, I was called to the Stewards to discuss this incident and also the one with Hamilton again in Q2: this sort of thing can happen as can be seen from the fact that no action was taken.I reached the exit of the final corner, I saw the red light and, instinctively, I thought I had not got there in time to do the flying lap. In fact, I had made it, but I did not push immediately as hard as I could have done, so I came back to the pits when I realised I would not have improved my time. It’s a real shame because I could definitely have done better and therefore started further up the grid. Tomorrow, I am expecting a very hard fought battle between three teams – us, McLaren and Red Bull – who are all very much on the pace. I will try to make up some places at the start and then to do the maximum for the team. However, in terms of performance, I think the situation is better than we could have expected. Fernando starts with a couple of aces to play, which in Poker usually signifies a strong hand.”

Chris Dyer: “A great qualifying from Fernando, which puts in a strong position for tomorrow’s race. I knew the Red Bulls were very quick and to manage to get ahead of Webber is really a nice result. We saw various strategies adopted in qualifying, but I think the one that we and McLaren adopted paid off best. Starting from third with Mark fifth is definitely positive in terms of the championship. A shame for Felipe, who was unable to get a second run in Q3. Considering the potential at his disposal, he could have ended up further up the grid. As usual, the start will be very important but here, more than elsewhere, it will be interesting to monitor the behaviour of the soft tyre in the first part of the race, given that degradation seems higher than we have seen at other tracks.”

In today’s final qualifying session of the 2010 season, Rubens Barrichello clinched another top ten grid position after a convincing drive on option tyres in Q3, putting him in P7 for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The option tyre worked less favourably for Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile. Making the switch from the option after Q1 left him with understeer and subsequently unable to manage higher than P15.

Rubens Barrichello: It was a great qualifying, especially considering where we were yesterday. On Friday we were struggling a little, but we have improved the car in every aspect and I am just delighted with the outcome today. Seventh is better than I expected and I hope we can maintain this tomorrow. Of course tomorrow is another day, but my engineers and I have good momentum together this weekend, so I am very positive.

Nico Hulkenberg: To begin with, Rubens and I were quite evenly matched but I ended up in P15 while Rubens made it into the top ten. In Q1 everything was fine, with the prime tyre working well. We then selected the option for Q2 and everything changed. My car suddenly behaved very unexpectedly, I lost balance and grip and the car was just sliding around all over the place. It was very strange and we will be looking into it tonight. With a good start, we could gain some places and end up with a more positive result tomorrow.

Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: It was a great qualifying from Rubens. Together with his engineer, he extracted the very best out of the car this afternoon and we’ll be looking for good performance in the race. Nico had shown the potential needed to make it into Q3, but something caused understeer in the slow corners in his final set of tyres. Both drivers can run a good race tomorrow and our intention is to maintain position in the constructors’ championship

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg qualified in eighth and ninth positions today for the final race of the 2010 season, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which takes place at the Yas Marina Circuit at 17:00hrs on Sunday.
Both drivers progressed well through the first two qualifying sessions with Nico looking particularly quick on the harder tyre in Q1 and Q2 where he finished in second and third positions. Q3 saw both drivers switch to the softer rubber which didn’t suit the car quite as well and they will line up on the grid with Michael on the fourth row and Nico on the fifth row.

Michael Schumacher: “I didn’t have the best last lap in Q3 today unfortunately as I didn’t quite get the sectors together. That was a shame because I could have ended up one or even two positions higher. However this gives me room to improve for tomorrow and that will be my target for the race. We’ve had a pretty straightforward weekend at this fantastic venue. I really enjoy driving here, the atmosphere is great and driving from day into night is very special. It’s a big spectacle and I hope the race adds to it.”

Michael Schumacher: “The speed was there today, however unfortunately only on the hard tyre, so it’s disappointing to be starting from ninth place on the grid. For our race strategy, I had to run the options in Q3 and I just struggled with them all the way through qualifying.”

Ross Brawn: “We made very solid progress into Q3 today with the car looking pretty reasonable throughout qualifying. However we were
much better on the prime tyre with both Nico and Michael struggling on the option in Q3. This gives us reason to be optimistic
in the race tomorrow when we should be on the right strategy. Overall we’re in a reasonable position.”

Norbert Haug: “In the first two qualifying sessions, our lap times looked pretty strong on the harder prime tyre. We knew that the option tyre
would probably cost us lap time in Q3 but it was still the right decision to use them. The little handicap today will hopefully
help us tomorrow when we aim to improve on our grid positions during the race tomorrow.”

Vitaly Petrov: The car has felt pretty good all weekend for me. We have made progress in each session, especially with the feel of the brakes, which is very important at this circuit, and it felt like all the parts of the package were working well today. I have been running in the top ten most of the weekend, and it was nice to deliver this potential in
qualifying. Looking ahead to the race, it will be a very tough one for the tyres, and we
need to think carefully about using the right strategy to cope with this.

Robert Kubica: I have been struggling with the car since yesterday and we simply didn’t manage to get on top of the issues, especially for qualifying. The rear of the car was
sliding a lot this evening, so it was hard to get on the power early enough to set a good
lap time. I tried everything, I was sideways in a lot of corners, but that’s how it was
today. It’s disappointing to miss out on the top ten, but it’s also the first time this year
that I have had a free tyre choice for Sunday – and we will have to see if we can make
this into an advantage for tomorrow. The season is still not over, and we will try to finish
it with some more points.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: We cannot be satisfied to line up tenth and 11th on the grid: we set our sights higher than this. Robert tried everything he could in qualifying, but he struggled with low grip and an oversteer balance that prevented him from doing any better. As for Vitaly, it’s good to see him in Q3 again, but he made a mistake on his final run and could have gone even quicker. We must now turn our attention to tomorrow afternoon’s race, and aim to conclude our season with a double points finish.

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: This was not our best qualifying effort of the year. Robert was not comfortable with the car in third practice, and the changes we made before qualifying failed to improve the situation. He was suffering from an overall lack of grip, and this is why he missed out on Q3. Vitaly had a reasonable day, qualifying in the top ten for the second race in a row.
He was generally happy with the car and has steadily improved throughout the
weekend. We must aim to get both cars into the points tomorrow, and we are obviously
in a position where we can make a free tyre choice with Robert; we will be looking
closely at what we think will be best for the race.