03 April 2010, BY formula1.com
World champions Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso on falling foul of the rain; Virgin’s Timo Glock and Lotus’s Heikki Kovalainen on taking their respective new teams through to Q2; and Red Bull’s Mark Webber on keeping calm in the wet conditions to take a spectacular pole position. All 24 drivers review Saturday’s action at Sepang…
Toro Rosso
Sebastien Buemi (13th, Q2 - 1m 49.207s)
“I’m angry because I did not make the most of Q2. But there’s nothing I can do about it and so we will have to tackle the race from where we are. I started Q2 on full wets because we felt the conditions demanded it, but I stayed on track too long and then, after I came in and switched to the Intermediates, it was too late because the rain had started to get stronger again.”
Jaime Alguersuari (14th, Q2 - 1m 49.464s)
“When you look at what happened to some of the quicker guys, I would say this qualifying result is reasonably okay for me. However, maybe if I had come in earlier in Q2 to switch from full wets to intermediates, then maybe I could have had a chance of seeing Q3. If the conditions are similar to this tomorrow and I believe that is the forecast, then you never know what could happen, although personally I would prefer a dry race.”
Giorgio Ascanelli, Toro Rosso technical director
"Malaysian rain is like English tea: it comes around five and it’s the same temperature. Seriously though, we got our tactics right in going out immediately in Q1. But in Q2, if we had more confidence in the forecast, we should have gone out earlier on Intermediates, but we thought it was too risky. We called Sebastien in at the right minute, but he did not come in and we missed the best slot. Jaime was very lucky not to run out of fuel in Q1 as he stayed out for one lap too long and in Q2, I would say he is pretty much where we would have expected. Therefore, something of a missed opportunity today.”
Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen (15th, Q2 - 1m 52.270s)
“I’m so pleased! I really like these conditions - it’s very hard to judge your speed and you really have to take some risks, and all the time you’re feeling like you might lose the car, but that’s the challenge and I love it! On some parts of the track it was very wet and raining hard, and on others it wasn’t so much. Getting to Q2 really exceeds expectations for me and the whole team - yes of course we’ve been a little bit lucky today for sure, but it means we beat the other new teams, again! Although we were lucky, we played our strategy just right - if you look at the McLarens and Ferraris they didn’t think it was going to rain that much and look what happened. They missed their window at the beginning of the session and we took full advantage of it. Now I can’t wait to race tomorrow!”
Jarno Trulli (18th, Q1 - 1m 52.884s)
“It was disappointing because I was doing very well. Unfortunately on my quickest lap a car spun in front of me, which impeded me through the second and third sector so I couldn’t close my fast lap; and then the rain was getting worse, so there was no chance to improve on lap time. Still - we’ll do our best tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.”
Mike Gascoyne, Lotus chief technical officer
“Obviously we’re all very very pleased to get a car into Q2 and Heikki did a tremendous job to get us there! I’m disappointed for Jarno as he got traffic on the lap that would have got him in. I think we got all the calls on the tyres right on the pit wall and in Q2 we ran the whole session on intermediates, which was clearly the thing to do. We made a change five minutes before the end, and Heikki got in a good clear lap to get P15. Well done to the whole team, and especially to Tony, for such success at one of our two home races - I know he’s very very proud.”
Tony Fernandes, Lotus team principal
“I’m speechless! What a day! To get 15th place in our home country, in front of our home crowd is amazing. I’m over the moon and just so excited. We gave the Toro Rossos a run for their money today and Jarno was just unfortunate to get blocked, otherwise he’d have been in Q2 as well. Tomorrow’s another day, and we’ll see what happens, but it’s a good step forward. Today we’ll enjoy it, and we’ll live for the day, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
McLaren
Jenson Button (17th, Q2 - no time)
“We thought the first rainstorm was it, and there was nothing else coming, so we waited. I guess events proved it was the wrong thing to do. My first lap on Inters felt okay. The thing is, you get no real warning; the first sector of the lap was quite dry, then you get to the fast left-right and it’s really wet. I just aquaplaned off and got stuck in the gravel. I couldn’t do anything about it. I just hope I haven’t damaged anything on the car because I was sat in the gravel with the engine running for some time, hoping to get pulled out. It was a strange, disappointing session - both Lewis and I went out early. But, even so, I’m in front of three of my world championship rivals on tomorrow’s grid, and I suppose that’s the best way of looking at it.”
Lewis Hamilton (20th, Q1 - 1m 53.050s)
“This was just one of those days. It had been a very good weekend for us up until qualifying started, and the simple fact is that we didn’t expect it to rain any more. We went out at a similar time to the other top teams, and as a result quite a lot of us were all out of luck. By the time I got out there, there were lots of yellow flags about, so you just couldn’t nail it - and then it started to rain more heavily. You couldn’t feel a thing, it was so, so slippery. It was easy to come off - I had a spin on my first lap, in fact - but I did the best job I could in the circumstances. I’d been fastest all weekend, but what can we do? We’ve just got to shrug it off. And, as I always, say, I’ll never give up. That’s why I’m not only focusing on the fast cars around me, I’m focusing on everyone - including those who are quite a few rows in front of me. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and I’m going to race my heart out.”
Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“To qualify only 17th and 20th with what today’s final practice session had clearly demonstrated was a highly competitive car was of course very disappointing for all concerned. So why did it happen? It happened because several teams, having consulted the weather radar, believed that the rain that was falling just prior to the start of Q1 would pass through and that the end of Q1 would be therefore by much drier. As we now know, it didn’t turn out like that. With hindsight it would therefore have been better if we’d sent our cars out at the beginning of Q1, instead of waiting for what the weather radar had told us would be drier and faster conditions. Having said all that, we’re now looking forward to a very exciting and hopefully very eventful race in which Jenson and Lewis, who are two of the most determined racers in the sport today, can produce a result for us that’s significantly better than our qualifying performance this afternoon.”
More to follow.
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