South Korea: The Qualifications Seen from the Stands

Red Bull

Mark Webber – Pole Position

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « For the second time in a week, it’s fantastic to lock out the front row. Mark delivered a fantastic lap to claim pole half a tenth ahead of Sebastian, who had dominated until then. It’s Renault’s second pole position, which we are delighted to have achieved with them. It’s now important to convert these strong qualifications into a good haul of points tomorrow. »

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McLaren

Lewis Hamilton – 3rd

Jenson Button – 11th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Director: Lewis put in a solid lap in Q3 to take third place, right behind the Red Bulls, and he’ll start the Korean Grand Prix from a favorable position on the clean side of the grid. Our pace on long runs was very good yesterday, so we hope he will be able to bring home a bundle of points tomorrow. On the contrary, it was a disappointing day for Jenson when his best lap in Q2 was ruined by the yellow flags caused by Daniel’s incident, leaving him 11th on the grid. He would have moved from Q2 to Q3 and likely qualified closer to the top of the grid. Having said that, he now has a bonus of available tires for the race, so we are now working on a strategy that could optimize the effectiveness of this unexpected result. Jenson showed good pace on long runs yesterday, so he will be looking for a significant step forward in terms of the result.

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 4th

Felipe Massa – 6th

Stefano Domenicali, Team Director: « We have proven that we can fight for the very top lines, which is a positive sign, especially when looking at the gap with the pole position. Compared to the two previous races, the gap is reducing, but clearly, our goal is to give our drivers the best car. It was an intense hour of qualifying, not easy to manage, because the relative performance of the teams was very close. One car on the second row and the other on the third is a good result and puts us in a position to be in the mix tomorrow afternoon. Usually, we have seen that the F2012 is more competitive on Sunday than on Saturday: let’s hope that is the case this time too! We will have to do everything perfectly: strategy, work in the garage, and reliability. Then, at the end of the afternoon, we will see where we stand. »

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Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 5th

Romain Grosjean – 7th

Alan Permane, Director of Track Operations: We are relatively pleased and it seems that our new package is working as it should. We have clearly made a step forward and having both cars solidly in Q3 is satisfying.

We have significantly improved in performance and there is still room for progress once we optimize the proper settings. Kimi was very strong in Q1, which allowed him to get through with just one run on soft tires, while Romain needed to use a set of super softs to be sure of reaching Q2. But from that point, we were confident of getting both cars into Q3. The advantage provided by the new Coanda exhaust system on Kimi’s car confirms that it will be installed on both cars for the next race.

We experienced a bit of graining on the front tires the day before yesterday, but now the soft and super soft tires are working well. We have observed the track evolution and also found a better setup to progress in this area. Pirelli claims that a single stop is possible, so we will study this closely.

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Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 8th

**Paul di Resta** – 14th

Robert Fernley, Vice-president of the team: « It was a tremendous performance by Nico to clock some excellent laps and qualify eighth, just ahead of the Mercedes cars. After practice, we weren’t sure where we stood, but we knew we were in a position to get into the top 10. Today’s result shows that we’ve had a car in Q3 in the last ten races, which is a reward for the hard work the team has put in this year. On the other side of the garage, it is frustrating that Paul encountered traffic at this crucial moment in qualifying. He was on Nico’s heels in sectors one and two and was just unlucky in the last part of the lap. For tomorrow’s race, we are confident that we can deliver a solid race and our goal is to get both cars in the points. »

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Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 9th

Michael Schumacher – 10th

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: The qualifying session went as we expected and the drivers did a good job, setting good laps at the right times. We were looking for a bit more performance in Q3 but couldn’t extract it from the car. The challenge was to find a good balance over a complete lap, and while we were particularly competitive after the first sector, we lost time due to understeer in the last two sectors. Tomorrow’s race will be very tactical, with plenty to watch throughout the field, and we still have a lot to do this weekend.

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Sauber

Sergio Pérez – 12th

Kamui Kobayashi – 13th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « We showed a solid performance today, which was not rewarded because both our drivers had to slow down due to the yellow flag in the last corner. They both delivered good qualifying laps and, given the long runs we did yesterday, I am confident that we can have a good race tomorrow. »

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Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 15th

Bruno Senna – 18th

Mark Gillan, Chief Track Operations Engineer: « We had a fairly difficult day with both drivers struggling with the car’s balance and the ultimate pace of the car wasn’t there today. We understand where the car is struggling and we will aim to iron out these issues as quickly as possible. We believe our pace on long runs can be better, and even from 15th or 18th position, we should be able to gain some points. »

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Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 16th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 17th

Laurent Mekiès, Chief Engineer: « These were disappointing qualifications for us, even though we had recovered quite a bit of speed compared to yesterday, which was evident from our Q1 times. It was a reflection of everyone’s improvement, especially the two drivers, who both posted good times in Q1. It was looking promising, but unfortunately in Q2, Daniel had to pull over by the track, announcing over the radio that he had no more propulsion. Our priority for this late afternoon will be to investigate and fix this issue. For Jean-Eric, at the very end of his last fastest lap, he pushed a little too hard and made a mistake. For tomorrow, even if we are not in the positions we were aiming for on the grid, the pace we showed in Q1 is still in the car, so we can expect a good race and aim to be in the fight for points as we have done in recent races. »

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Caterham

Vitaly Petrov – 19th

Heikki Kovalainen – 20th

The Caterham team has not released statements from the team’s representatives

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Marussia

Timo Glock – 21st on the grid

Charles Pic – 24th on the grid [after penalty]

John Booth, Team Director: « Last night, the drivers and engineers spent a lot of time analyzing the balance issues with the car during FP2, and this morning, the program’s goal for both cars was to evaluate some setup changes to see if they could correct the problems we had. In the end, Timo didn’t have the best possible session and opted for a slight compromise, which was a bit of a leap into the unknown during these qualifiers. Charles was happier with his direction in FP3, which had caused him significant problems yesterday, and his regained confidence was clear in qualifying. We decided to forgo the traditional first two stints on super softs, simply because we felt we couldn’t compete sufficiently with the cars ahead of us, however, as we’ve sometimes seen, we are better during the race. This track is a challenge for us because of the long straights in the first sector that disadvantage us since we don’t have KERS. The lap is long, so we can make up for the delay in sectors 1 and 2, and by saving two sets of new soft tires and two sets of new super soft tires, we can definitely optimize the strategy for tomorrow. »

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HRT

Pedro de la Rosa – 22nd on the grid

Narain Karthikeyan – 23rd on the grid

Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director of the team: « Today was not the best day for us. In the morning session, we noticed an improvement in the performance of the cars and the drivers finished with better sensations than yesterday. But, in qualifying, things did not go well. Narain, in his first lap, suffered a brake disc failure and was unable to go back out. Fortunately, he and the car are fine, and now we are investigating the cause of this incident. And Pedro had a good lap, but our rivals were better. Tomorrow will be a long race and tires and pit stops will play a key role, so we will try to do the best job possible to take advantage of any opportunities that may arise. »

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