Saturday: HRT beats Virgin but will ultimately start behind
The two HRT drivers had a good qualifying session by beating the two Virgin drivers, but both received a five-place penalty - for a gearbox change for Ricciardo and for impeding Schumacher in Q1 for Karthikeyan. They will therefore start behind Jérome d'Ambrosio's Virgin tomorrow, but they hope to finish ahead of the Belgian and his teammate Timo Glock.
Narain Karthikeyan – 22nd and 23rd
«We got the most out of the car today and we were ahead of the two Virgins (before penalties were applied) and I’m proud of that. I was ahead of my teammate but made a small mistake. Anyway, I am happy with the way I drove and with my position. I think it was the best I could do and the whole team did a fantastic job to allow us to be ahead of the Virgins. It’s an incredible feeling to race in front of my home crowd and tomorrow I want to finish the race in the best position possible.»
Daniel Ricciardo – 24th and 22nd
I managed to secure a good position today, it’s one of the best qualifications of the season and we are ahead of our rivals. It was tricky to get ahead of d’Ambrosio but I managed. During free practice 3, we had some issues and couldn’t prepare for qualifying, so we have to be happy with this result. There are still a few small things we need to sort out, but we hope for a good race, especially since I don’t think qualifying is our strong point, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow and hope to finish ahead of the cars I managed to beat today during the qualifying session.
Colin Kolles – Team Principal of HRT
The track conditions were supposed to be better today, and the third practice session started well. Narain and Daniel were doing excellent work with the hard tires, working on the race setup. Everything seemed fine, and the improvements we were hoping for were indeed there. Narain also did a good job with the soft tires, but unfortunately, Daniel had a gearbox problem towards the end of the session, and we had to replace it before qualifying. Things went perfectly in the garage, and we managed to complete the job in time for what was almost a perfect qualifying session. Both our drivers consistently improved their times. We could have gone a bit faster with perfect laps, but beating both Virgins is satisfying. It’s a shame that Narain and Daniel have to start behind after their 5-place penalties, but I am confident they can have a good race tomorrow.
