Spain

Last Race: 12th May Spain

Spain GP Results
Pos Driver
1 Fernando Alonso
2 Kimi Raikkonen
3 Felipe Massa

Sat: Williams, McLaren, FIndia, Sauber

Saturday 7th July 2012

Sat: Williams, McLaren, FIndia, Sauber

Sat: Williams, McLaren, FIndia, Sauber

There were top ten times in the British GP qualifying for Pastor Maldonado, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg...

Williams:
Pastor Maldonado: "The conditions were very difficult because the track was changing all the time and we had to work hard to improve the performance. I was a bit unlucky at the end as I crossed the line just as the chequered flag came out so did one less lap than the others, but we are looking forward to tomorrow. We are competitive and consistent so will be looking to challenge for a strong finish tomorrow."

Bruno Senna: "I was able to drive at a really good pace but in the end was just unlucky to catch a yellow flag on my final qualifying lap when I was easily on course to make it well into the top ten and go through to Q3. It's frustrating but we'll see what happens with the weather and hopefully we can be competitive and challenge for the top 10 in the race."

McLaren:
Lewis Hamilton: "I don't really know what happened in Q3. The Full Wets had been working really well, but, as the track gradually became less wet, I sought better grip and switched to the Intermediates - but we struggled to get enough temperature into them and just couldn't switch them on. So I had very little grip on the Inters, having felt more confident on the Full Wets; obviously, we'll have to try to analyse the problem overnight and hopefully fix it for tomorrow. I want to give a shout-out to the fans. They've been fantastic: very patient and so supportive. The cheers from the grandstands were spectacular. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a car on the front row for them, but we can still push tomorrow. Although eighth position isn't the best place from which to be starting, it's going to be a tough race and we're not that far away."

Jenson Button: "I can usually drive a racing car in the wet, but obviously not today. The car felt completely different on its second set of Inters - on the first set, I'd had a lot of front-shuddering and couldn't get the tyres working, but on the second set that problem was much better. So, on my final run, I was around 1.8sec up on my previous best. Sadly, however, I wasn't able to make that count in terms of my overall lap-time, because it was particularly wet in the final sector and there was also a yellow flag along the startline. That's the way it is sometimes. It's the story of my year, really, I guess. If Sunday is wet, as we expect it to be, then the fact that we haven't put too many miles on the tyres may make me a bit better equipped for tomorrow. You've just got to take the positives from the situation, wherever you can."

Force India:
Nico Hulkenberg: "It was a very long session with the delay, but I think I made the most of the conditions in Q1 and Q2. It was definitely the right call to stop the session when the rain got really heavy because there was too much standing water on the circuit and the car was beginning to aquaplane. But I don't understand where the pace went in Q3 when I was on the intermediates because the car felt more tricky to drive and the laptime didn't come so easy. I was actually hoping for a better position in Q3 than P9, especially with the five-place penalty I have for tomorrow."

Paul di Resta: "We actually took a bit of gamble on the qualifying session being dry and that's the direction we took with the set-up, but it made driving very difficult in today's wet conditions. I think some other cars went more aggressive with a full wet set-up so hopefully my gamble will come back to me tomorrow in the race. Of course I would like to be starting further towards the front, but we are going into the race with a lot of unknowns in terms of set-up data and tyre performance. Anything is possible in the race and we won't give up."

Sauber:Kamui Kobayashi: "We started on intermediate tyres after the break and this proved to be the wrong decision. I pitted and changed to rain tyres, but then I only had time for one flying lap and in the difficult conditions this wasn't enough to improve as much as I needed to make it into Q3. Before that we had a very good chance of fighting for a top position. Our pace was really good in the wet. It is a missed opportunity. For tomorrow's race I don't really care whether it's wet or dry. I'll be starting a long way down the grid and will fight as hard as I can."


Sergio Perez: "We made the wrong decision when we went for intermediates instead of rain tyres after the break, but I also had traffic. I was driving behind Daniel Ricciardo and could hardly see anything. It is such a shame because we clearly had the pace to fight for a top position here. However, we made a mistake and now have to try hard to recover from that in the race."

Related Links
Alonso reigns in extended qualy

Saturday's Silverstone shots

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