Although both Toro Rosso drivers made it into Q2 they were the slowest team overall aside from the usual trio of Caterham, Marussia and HRT...
Toro Rosso:
Daniel Ricciardo: "I enjoy this track a lot so I am disappointed with my qualifying position, because I thought I might have had a chance to do a bit better: top ten would have been optimistic but I had thought maybe twelfth was in reach. However, we didn't make that happen. I was relatively happy with the way I drove, but I did not manage to put all my best sector times together on one lap. I think I was overdriving at times and making a few mistakes. If I had managed the perfect lap, maybe that would have brought me a couple more tenths, but I was not good enough to go much further up the grid. It's tough to pass here, but we'll try our best for tomorrow. The opening lap will be a fine balance between keeping the car between the barriers and trying to make up some places. Who knows, maybe there will be some rain to help us out."
Jean-Eric Vergne: "I was expecting to do better, because my lap in Q1 was far from perfect and I thought I could put it all together for Q2 when we would have two runs, but my first one ended in the wall. I think I braked a bit on the bump at the exit to the tunnel and hit the outside wall, damaging the nose and also the right rear suspension, which is why I could not continue, even though I managed to drive slowly round to the pits. Let's see what we can do in the race, because anything can happen. Up until this afternoon's incident I felt quite good round here so I am still hopeful of having a good race tomorrow, maybe with a bit of rain to create some interesting situations."
Caterham:
Heikki Kovalainen: "That was a good session for me. I've had a good balance all weekend and I went into this session knowing I could push. I'd said to my engineer before quali that I thought we could get into Q2 and we were very close - if it hadn't been for one of the Marussia cars slowing me up in the final sector we'd have been there, but it's not a huge issue, that's what happens in Monaco. Around here I think tomorrow we have the car to be able to fight the cars ahead throughout the race. So far this season we've been able to stay with them for pretty much most of the first two stints, but because it's a shorter lap here we'd like to be able to fight for the whole race. Whether it's dry, wet or in between, it doesn't really matter to me - whatever happens I'm looking forward to it."
Vitaly Petrov: "That was pretty good - the car's felt good every time we've been out and I think we probably got as much as we could out of it today. We had an issue with KERS this morning so we had to shut that off for quali, so that obviously cost me some time, but we worked around that and pushed as hard as we could in Q1 so it worked out as well as we could have hoped. The red flag obviously disrupted everybody and even though I'd got a lap in before the session started it wasn't a quick one. When I went out again the second set of tyres didn't feel quite as good, but all in all it's been a positive weekend so far. Tomorrow will be exciting and I'm looking forward to it. We've already seen that people can make mistakes here so we want to make sure we're there to take advantage of whatever happens on track and fight to the flag."
Marussia:
Timo Glock: "I think another good day for me. FP3 this morning was quite a solid session and we worked our way through the programme. As a crew we've worked well together all weekend - my engineers, mechanics and myself - and together we got the car in good shape for qualifying. We made some slight adjustments between the two sessions and I felt happy with the car. After Perez's incident and the red flag, the job was harder as we could only have one shot on the Super Soft tyres and with all the traffic. So I'm quite happy with my lap and thanks to my engineers for putting me in the best possible spot for my quick lap. Now I look forward to tomorrow and what I'm sure will be an exciting race. It was nice of DTM's Mike Rockenfeller to pop by before qualifying for a surprise visit. Very good to see him."
Charles Pic: "Overall it was not a great qualifying for me. I think our pace here in Monaco is less strong than it was in Barcelona. I also had some traffic in my fast lap, so not a good day. Now we have to focus all we can on tomorrow and what we can do to improve. We know that sometimes in Monaco there are opportunities, so we will have to put ourselves in the best position to be able to take advantage of them."
HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: "It was the best qualifying session of the year and, without a doubt, the best lap I've ever done in Monaco. The car went well and we decided to do three runs with three new sets of super-softs because we already know that in Monaco the most important thing is to do one good lap. And that's just what happened and I'm delighted about it because getting into the 18.0's here is very good. I'm very satisfied because we got our timing right, the team knew when was the right moment to come out in order to avoid traffic and I accomplished my job, which was to do the best lap possible. I must admit I took some risks, on some laps in the last sector I even almost closed my eyes, but I had to attack and did just that. With one more tenth we would have also overtaken Glock but the truth is that we're very happy with how the day went."
Narain Karthikeyan: "We carried out a different strategy to Pedro, and went for two runs when maybe three would have been better. The positive note is that we have one more set of new option tyres for tomorrow's race and we have to get the best out of them. Pedro and I have been quite closely matched all weekend and I'm sure we'll have a good pace tomorrow. Although, if it rains it will be a bit of a lottery. Whatever happens, we have to be ready to make the most of any opportunity that may arise."
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