PlanetF1

Sat: Williams, Caterham, Marussia, HRT

Saturday 21-April-2012 13:23

It was not a great Saturday for Williams, however, for Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen there were 16 reasons to smile...

Williams:
Bruno Senna: "It was really difficult today. Once again, a few tenths of a second make a big difference in grid position. It's going to be a big challenge tomorrow but I think we can have a good race from where we are. I feel I got as much out of the car as possible today but we can be stronger tomorrow."

Pastor Maldonado: "The car felt car felt quick this morning, so it's a shame that we had a KERS problem which meant we couldn't run in Q2. It's going to be a tough race tomorrow with the added grid penalty, as well as it being a difficult track. We need to attack from the start and get our strategy right, but our pace looked good on race simulations so I'm looking forward to the challenge."

Caterham:
Heikki Kovalainen: "That was an excellent qualifying session for our team. It's a real bonus for us getting into Q2 but we'd already seen this morning that we were close to a few cars and we thought that with the conditions today, being hot and pretty windy, we might be able to use the option tyres to get us into Q2, and it worked out. We've also saved a set of tyres for tomorrow as we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to get too much higher, and with the degradation rates we've seen yesterday and today it's clear tyre management is going to play a big role tomorrow. Overall, I'm delighted for the team. We've worked really hard to put ourselves in a position where we can fight and today we showed that we are close enough to record results like we did today. We made progress over the winter, and even though we haven't really shown it yet this season, today's the sort of result we knew we could put in, so it's a great day, for everyone in Caterham F1 Team back at the factory and here on track."

Vitaly Petrov: "I'm reasonably pleased with how today went, bearing in mind the problem we had with the floor in FP3 which cost us a bit of time and meant we weren't really able to find a balance on the soft tyres that I could really exploit in qualifying. My run on the prime tyres was good - I was very close to my team mate and the car felt good, but when we switched to the options the car just didn't feel right. It wasn't so much a balance issue, it was more about how the car felt under braking and I think that's what cost me the time on the soft tyres. Despite that I think we look like we're getting towards where we should be. We're much closer to the cars ahead than we were in China and having already seen how we can fight with some of the midfield cars in the races I think tomorrow could be a good day for us. It's definitely going to be interesting. There will be a lot of stops and it'll come down to who uses their tyres best."

Marussia:
Charles Pic: "Not an easy day today, but I am quite happy with the result. This afternoon it was much hotter as forecast and the tyre degradation was maybe a little worse with the rears. We seem to have managed this quite well though and generally the team has done a good job through the day to keep pushing forward. The race will be tough as we will struggle with the tyres for sure, but we were quite conservative with them today so that we improve our chances for tomorrow and now we will have to see. For now, it has been good to get to grips with this track again and a good day."

Timo Glock: "Not a very good Saturday for us. We struggled massively in terms of the car balance again this morning and also in qualifying because of too much instability at the rear under braking. The lap itself was not too bad until Turn 13, where I made a massive mistake and I think I lost everything in that corner. I tried to do a cool-down on the second lap, but the rear tyres were off already and we only had one set of the Soft tyres as we were trying to save them for the race tomorrow. So not the best at all and it is a shame that a fuel pick-up problem meant that we also dropped behind one of the HRTs as well. We'll have to see what we can do in the race now. We've saved tyres, which is good, but I have my concerns about the rears again for tomorrow."

HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: "I'm very happy to be honest. We come from not qualifying in Australia not long ago, so when I saw the times we posted I was glad. For us it's an important jump and, sincerely, at such a complicated track for us as this one, we didn't expect to finish ahead of one Marussia, so that's satisfying. Tyre degradation is high and tomorrow I will have to find the compromise in the first part of the sector in order to have enough rubber for the last one to maintain some grip. We know that the race will be a three-stop or four-stop one and that we're going to struggle, but so will everyone else so we have to go for it and do the best we can."

Narain Karthikeyan: "Yesterday was a big struggle for me. We had a tough morning but later improved. Today we made some good progress and in qualifying the car was quite good. In sector 2 I had a misfire on my fastest lap, on turn 12, which cost me a bit of time. The amazing thing is that we haven't done much to the car but we're quite close to the group ahead of us and that's very positive. We found a lot of time from yesterday to today, so we can safely say we've shown real progress. Tomorrow is another day and the race will be quite difficult because of the massive tyre degradation but what's certain is that we're heading into it fully confident that we can do it."

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