Sunday: A solid race from Virgin
Timo Glock and Jérôme D'Ambrosio put in a solid race to finish ahead of the HRTs. However, the Team Lotus cars were too far behind in performance to hope for anything better today.
Timo Glock – 20th
I made a good start on the outside and managed to pass Jérôme in the first part of the first two corners. I almost touched Trulli, he pushed me off the track and I ended up on the grass, which unfortunately didn’t allow me to stay on the racing line, so I lost the position again and found myself behind Jérôme. I was stuck behind him during the first stint, which destroyed my tires in the first five or six laps, as I was a bit faster than him and then he started to pull away. We opted for an early pit stop, but the right rear tire quickly degraded, costing me a few seconds. Then the safety car came out and we switched to hard tires. I was able to fight with Jérôme, but in the end, with all those blue flags, it was quite difficult to fight and I had a few tough moments. Anyway, we got both cars to the finish without any issues, and we got the best out of the car.
Jérôme D’Ambrosio – 21st
«I think it was a good race. I had a good start and an interesting first part of the race. I’m not sure if we chose the best strategy, as I lost my place to Timo in the pits, which is really unfortunate. But I came back at him in the end, and we had a nice fight. Overall, it was a positive weekend for me and I’m happy with the result.»
John Booth – Team Principal
«Today’s day was not the simplest of our weekend. Our strategy was not as influential as we had hoped, and we lost a bit of time with our pit stops. At the beginning of the race, we suffered a computer issue in the garage concerning the display of times, unfortunately, this happened at a critical moment in the tire’s life cycle, so we really had to think hard about it. Despite all these problems, we were still able to finish ahead of our competitors, and with both cars. We will be back on track in Korea. We need to quickly implement the necessary improvements.»
