It was not a great qualifying in Malaysia for Toro Rosso who joined Caterham, Marussia and HRT at the back of the grid...
Toro Rosso:
Daniel Ricciardo: "Today's performance was okay, but obviously not as good on paper as last Saturday when I was in Q3. Looking at the times, it's very close so a tenth of a second might have made a difference of a few positions. Having said that, the people behind me are quite close as well. I think we are more or less where we thought we would be, as we expected Q3 to be a more difficult target here than in Melbourne. I am reasonably happy with the lap I did, which was pretty clean and I am not kicking myself thinking I could have done better. Hopefully, we have a good package for the race and I will be trying to nose into the points. We've got 56 laps to make up position and yesterday, our long run performance wasn't bad. But if it rains, then it's anyone's game and there will be more opportunities, so that could help."
Jean-Eric Vergne: "Of course I am a bit disappointed with this result. I made a mistake at the first corner, having a massive lock-up on a front wheel. That created so much vibration that I had to come back to the pits and that was my qualifying over. Looking for something positive, at least it means we have saved one set of new Option tyres for the race. There's also a chance of rain for tomorrow so anything could happen, but whatever the conditions, I feel our car can be competitive in race trim. Compared to Melbourne, the car is pretty much the same so the difference in qualifying result between there and here is down to the fact the mid-field is so close and, as I was not able to do a time on the Option that explains my grid position."
Caterham:
Heikki Kovalainen: "That was an odd qualifying session for me. I know there's more time in the car because I definitely lost time on the second run on the options. I made a couple of small errors and felt the rear grip just wasn't quite there, so there was more to come, but just not today. Tomorrow I have to make sure I get past the cars in front as quickly as possible and get on with my race. The rain that's been predicted hasn't fallen during a session yet but who knows what could happen tomorrow. It's always interesting here and with the conditions we have it'll be all about making sure we get to the end of the race and see where we are."
Vitaly Petrov: "We had quite an aggressive strategy here for qualifying but it didn't quite pay off. I haven't really had a good balance on the car in either FP3 or the quali runs and I think we need to spend a bit more time looking at how to get the most out of the tyres. Now I'm looking forward to tomorrow. The car felt great last Sunday and on the long runs we've done here it's been more settled, so we'll aim to have a good start, avoid any problems in the first couple of corners and get on with the fight ahead."
Marussia:
Timo Glock: "It was quite a tough, difficult day for me today. The car was very good this morning on prime tyres and I had a good feeling for it, so I was quite confident for us on our option tyre run - the medium - in FP3 to see how much that would bring us forward. For some reason though I struggled massively with the tyre, just like yesterday, and I completely lost the balance of the car. I went slower on the Medium, compared to anyone else, so that was a bit of a shocker. I managed to do two good laps but didn't really have the confidence with the tyre. I made two little mistakes and this cost me a tenth or two. The team has done a great job again and another weekend without any technical problems so far, so we will see for the race now."
Charles Pic: "For me it was a good qualifying and another good day generally. I am a little bit closer to Timo than Australia and that is the best target I have for now. I think there is still a couple of tenths to find but overall a positive step. I think it will be a tough race tomorrow; today was just a few laps, whereas tomorrow is 56. The weather is still uncertain also, so I think it will be interesting for everyone. A good job by the team in the conditions."
HRT:
Narain Karthikeyan: "The conditions changed a lot from the morning and the track was much more slippery but we qualified for the race which was our first objective for this weekend and a positive step from Australia. We had to change our strategy a little bit today because of some heating issues, and it worked, but now we must focus on overcoming those issues and aim to finish the race. It would be good for us if it rained because that keeps the car a bit cooler but, no matter what, we'll have to give it our best and try to put in a good performance."
Pedro de la Rosa: "It was a good day. From the first lap in the morning I felt that the car had improved notably and we improved our times significantly. We've lowered our time by more than a second from yesterday to today and every time we modify something new we're going quicker. We could have improved our times even more during the qualifying session. I was only able to do one lap but it was enough. The important thing was to qualify and we did. The team has proved that in a short amount of days it managed to have the DRS ready and improve the power steering and other aspects of the car. We've taken a huge stride and I'm very satisfied because of that. Now we have to see how tomorrow goes in long distance because it will be the first time we string so many laps together, which won't be easy in this weather."
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