GP2 Yas Marina - Qualifying press conference

GP2 Series: Oliver, your first ever pole position in the main series: I guess you are quite delighted with how it went today?

Oliver Turvey: Yeah I am! It’s a fantastic result for myself and for the team, and in the last few rounds we’ve been quite strong in qualifying and we’ve been fighting for pole but ended up dropping in the last minutes to third, but here we got everything together and it was a really good lap, the car was feeling the best its felt all season, and everything worked well. To get pole by half a second is a fantastic achievement!

GP2 Series: It was an amazing lap, and it’s good to see it all work out at last. You and the team clearly love this circuit and have always one well here: what is it about this place that’s allowed you to get this result?

Oliver: Yeah, in the Asia Series we seemed to be very strong here, and I won my second ever race in GP2 here, so I’m very confident with the track and the car seems to work here! Both cars worked well and everything came together, and we’ll have to see if the pace is there tomorrow but I’m confident that it will be. It was a fantastic qualifying session, and it went well in free practice as well for P2, we made some good improvement over the lunch break and they worked: in qualifying we tried a slightly different strategy in the first run to the second run, and in the end the second one worked much better for the tyres. It’s good to get the points as well, and to qualify on the pole for the last round!

GP2 Series: You were there or thereabouts all day today, but that penultimate lap was amazing: what was the difference on that one?

Oliver: I think I hit the lap very well, I hit the tyres very well, and I did a clean lap: maybe there was still a little bit of time if I got it fully hooked up, but I saw on my dash that I was up quite a bit, and I think we were quickest in almost all the sectors. We’re just really pleased with this, and happy to be on pole, and looking forward to starting the race from pole.

GP2 Series: And tomorrow: a win?

Oliver: That’s the aim! [laughs] We’ll give it our best shot, we’ve got the best starting position, and I’m confident that if we can get to the first turn in the lead we can stay out front. We’ll work hard on the race set up overnight, see if we can improve it even more for tomorrow, and I’m confident that we’ll be strong in the race.

GP2 Series: Dani, P2 and a strong performance in qualifying: are you satisfied with that today?

Dani Clos: Yeah, I’m happy to be there again: it’s been a hard two races after the crash in Spa and the broken vertebrae, but we’ve been working hard these last two months and I’m just happy for me and the team, who are doing an incredible job. I feel really good, comfortable, and today is a good day but the weekend is not over: we need to do a good job in the race tomorrow and do our best race of the year.

GP2 Series: It seemed to be a good return of the old Dani from before Spa: is this an indication that you’re back on top form again?

Dani: I feel a lot better, my back is 100% recovered, and that’s good for me: inside the car you can really feel the difference. So now we just have to do our job and everything will be fine.

GP2 Series: You’ve got a nice fight lined up with Sergio tomorrow, and potential for second in the championship: what are you thoughts for the race?

Dani: I am just coming here to do my job, and I don’t care what the others will do: I will just do my race, do the best I can, and then the result will come. After we will see, on Sunday, what it is all about.

GP2 Series: Sergio, P3 today: happy with your job in the car today?

Sergio Perez: Yeah. It was a tough qualifying today, very competitive, the maximum I could do was P2 but we did a small mistake in the strategy. Turvey was very quick today, too quick for us, but tomorrow I’m sure we’re going to be competitive and I hope I can win my last race.

GP2 Series: It was a torrid session, with you and Turvey and Bianchi swapping best times until the end when he got a great lap: was it just untouchable?

Sergio: Yeah, I think he did a super lap, but he did two laps that were good enough for pole. He is very competitive, but I’m very confident for tomorrow that we have a very strong car for the race, and I am really looking forward to it.

GP2 Series: I guess you’re also hoping to wrap up second in the championship too: does that come into the strategy at all?

Sergio: No, not at all: I didn’t really care about the championship position anymore, second, third, fourth is for me the same. But I want to win the team championship, I want to give this championship to my team, and also I want to say goodbye with a win.

GP2 Series: And can you get that win tomorrow?

Sergio: Yes!