Saturday: D’Ambrosio ahead of Glock at Virgin
Handicapped by bad settings during the free practice last night, Timo Glock once again had to bow to Jérôme D'Ambrosio, whose work impresses John Booth.
Jérome D’Ambrosio – 21st and 20th
« It’s a good Saturday. We did a very good final lap, which is difficult to achieve here. You want to push hard, but you always have to think, it’s all about prioritizing and working on which corners to sacrifice. I’m very happy today, especially because we turned things around: yesterday was tough, and we tried to do better on a circuit like Suzuka. I’m really happy. I worked well with my engineers, and I think that thanks to this combination, we improved the car and my driving ».
Timo Glock – 22nd and 21st
For me, I think it’s a good qualification. Moving from Free Practice 3 to qualifying was quite mysterious because we tried something overnight that didn’t really work as we wanted, so we had to go back between the two sessions. In the end, the car was really good and my lap was too. There’s not much more to say except that I think Jérome was slightly faster and did a good job. I’m happy with the car, so let’s wait and see tomorrow.
John Booth
« After probably one of Jérome’s best Fridays, he spent a lot of time last night looking at the data with the engineers to see where he needed to improve. During FP3, he did an impressive job of closing the gap to Timo, and during qualifying, he had a good second stint to finish seven-tenths ahead of him. We anticipated a decent level of grip during Q1, so we launched our last stint having completed only one lap, and it worked perfectly concerning traffic, allowing both drivers to give their best. Timo returned to his FP2 settings for qualifying. We saw a lot of incidents during the various sessions, so we will try to ensure that both cars have a clean race and are in a position to take advantage of every opportunity ».
