Saturday: Pic and Caterham raced against the clock
Forced to go through the weigh-in in Q1 and suffering from a start system failure with Caterham, Charles Pic was nonetheless able to rely on the speed of his mechanics to achieve his goal with a nineteenth place on the grid. Van der Garde, on the other hand, settled for 21st place, expressing satisfaction with the progress made during the weekend.
Charles Pic – 19th and 19th:
« Our focus for Free Practice 3 was to better understand how the track was evolving and to prepare for qualifying. Following a good day yesterday and the work we accomplished overnight, we started the session with more front grip than we had during the two sessions yesterday and improved the overall balance of the car. We need to make small adjustments to adapt to the wind that has appeared on the track today, but the car seemed good throughout the session, and the level of degradation we observed was very positive. During the performance runs, the car felt good, so we felt quite optimistic for qualifying.
In qualifying, we planned to do two stints on soft tires. In the first stint, the fast lap was very good but I was asked to go to the weighbridge at the end of this stint and we encountered a problem with the system that starts the car. The team had to push me into the garage but we decided to go out for a lap again, so we just had enough time to recover the car, start it, and get back on track.
On the last lap, my pace was good but we encountered traffic in the second sector, which may have cost us a few tenths, but we were still able to finish ahead of our closest rivals, in 19th place, which was our goal. I want to thank the pit team for doing a great job allowing me to get back to the garage and return for a lap: some of them have been jogging on the track this year and it paid off!
Giedo van der Garde – 21st and 21st:
The day on Friday went well, and after reviewing all the data since yesterday, we made a few changes overnight for Free Practice 3. During the morning session, we worked on qualifying and race setups, and the session went well, but we still had minor issues with bringing the tires up to temperature quickly enough. On the first stint, I still experienced a bit of oversteer, which had been our problem yesterday, but it was now only in the fast sections of sector 3, so we made some mechanical changes for the next stint, and the car’s balance improved. We then moved on to performance stints, but I still had issues with tire temperature, so I didn’t really have the chance to maximize the potential on the first laps with soft tires. Despite that, we felt like we had made progress since Friday.
When qualifying started, we went out quite early, and on this first lap, I had the advantage of two clear laps to set a time. The first stint was good, and the tires warmed up better than in Free Practice 3, so we went out for a quick lap on the second stint. We went back out a few minutes before the end of the session, but the tires weren’t working in the first half of the lap, and even though the second half of the lap was better, I still lost too much time in the first sector. However, I think we have a good car for the race, and our pace on the long runs was quite good, so we hope to get a good start and see what happens on Sunday.
