Saturday: Virgin prepares for rain
After spending the night on Jérôme D'Ambrosio's car, which required a chassis change following his accident in Free Practice 2, the British team couldn't expect much. Above the 107% mark, the Belgian driver was nevertheless given a reprieve by the stewards, while the team hopes for rain to make an appearance.
Timo Glock – 21st & 22nd
« It was rather a tough day for us, I think. We tried to focus on the settings for wet track conditions as the weather forecast strongly indicates there will be rain, so our downforce level is more suited to a wet track than a dry one. The forecasts are still uncertain, but we hope it will turn in our favor. It will probably be difficult tomorrow, but at least we will have enough downforce to preserve the tires. We just have to see what tomorrow will bring. »
Jérôme d’Ambrosio – 23rd & 24th
« It was a tough day since my accident yesterday, both for me and my team. Rebuilding the car last night and getting it back on track represents a huge amount of work for the guys, but the battle wasn’t over because we then had to try to find the settings that would allow us to qualify.
In the end, it wasn’t enough and I’m just very disappointed for myself and for the team.
The car behaved completely differently compared to yesterday and, clearly, Timo’s time is more representative of what we could have achieved in qualifying.
I am very grateful to the commissioners who allowed me to participate in the race, I am now focused on tomorrow.
John Booth
« We dedicated part of our Free Practice 3 to preparing for the race, and maybe we should have spent more time on the qualifying. […]
Although Jérôme failed to qualify today, we are grateful to the stewards for allowing him to participate in the race, after taking into consideration that he set a reasonable time during free practice, consistently met the criteria of Article 36.3 this season, and the extent of repairs needed overnight due to damage sustained during Free Practice 2.
After the disappointment of qualifying, it is both a relief and a just reward for the substantial efforts of the mechanics throughout the night.
It will be a tough race for him, he wasn’t feeling good in the car this morning, so we will spend the evening seeing what we can do to allow him to have a better race.
