Saturday: An HRT slots in between the Virgins

Vitantonio Liuzzi – 23rd and 21st

« We were motivated by the idea of coming here with new developments and expect more in the future. We push at each race and all the time at the factory, so this result is important, it’s the reward for all this work and it confirms that the gap is closing with the rest [of the pack]. We are almost ahead of the two Virgins, which is our goal, but they are pushing too, and it won’t be easy. […] I struggled a bit with the tires at the beginning of my first stint, but the second was really strong, the car responded well. We encountered some problems in the morning, we were worried about not having the right balance to qualify, but in the end, everything went well. P21 is a great result. Tomorrow we will try to finish ahead of the two Virgins. It’s important to keep this goal in sight. »

Narain Karthikeyan – 24th and 23rd

« I should have done better today, considering that my teammate had a pretty good lap. My first set of tires was very good but with the second, I had no more grip, the car was sliding everywhere so we need to find out what went wrong. This is my third race since my return to Formula One, and Turkey is not an easy track, there are a lot of bumps and it is quite technical. So, the more time I spend in the car, the more comfortable I’ll get. The car is improving a lot, the reliability is good, so once again, my goal for tomorrow will be to finish the race. »

Colin Kolles, Team Principal

The qualification didn’t go so badly today. As anticipated yesterday, we made a step forward. We are ahead of a Virgin and relatively close to the second one, Tonio could have overtaken it but, nevertheless, we are very happy to be close to our main opponents and to be only 3.6 seconds off the best time in Q1 is very positive. Tomorrow, we expect a good race where we can fight with the others to finish in a strong position.