Saturday: HRT continues its progression
Always the last, the HRT team continues their slow improvement nevertheless, this time well below the critical 107% mark. While Pedro de la Rosa expressed satisfaction with his Q1, Narain Karthikeyan has some regrets after two imperfect stints.
Pedro de la Rosa – 24th and 23rd
I think it was, up until now, our best qualifying session. I have already said several times that we have a great margin for improvement, but the important thing is that we have considerably reduced the gap to pole position, to four seconds from the leader, and that’s very positive for us. We are reducing the difference and, even if we are not going to stop here, we have taken a step forward, so I am very happy. In this qualifying session, we made some changes to the setup and the car responded better and, even though this morning there was no way it would run well, this afternoon I felt the car better. Tomorrow we hope to fight, as we did in Malaysia, and if we can finish a bit higher, that would be even better.
Narain Karthikeyan – 23rd and 24th
« This morning, we experienced some issues with the suspension, but we managed to fix it in time for the afternoon. During qualifying, I got stuck on my first lap and didn’t achieve a good time on the first set of tires. With the second set, I had a flat, which is why I didn’t achieve a good time, but despite everything, we were well below the 107% and that’s important. Tomorrow, if it rains during the race, it will be beneficial for us. Otherwise, we’ll have to try to do our best. The goal is once again to rack up some kilometers, and I’m confident in the car’s ability to cover the race distance. »
