Sat: Williams, Caterham, Marussia

Editor 02 Nov 2013 3:45 PM

Despite getting both cars into Q2, Williams finished slowest overall in qualifying for the Abu Dhabi along with Caterham and Marussia…

Williams:
Pastor Maldonado: “I had a strong Q1 but in Q2 I struggled with traffic and wasn’t able to put a clean lap together, with the cars that crossed the line after me benefitted from the increased rubber on track. We have made some updates for this weekend and the car is feeling more consistent which will help us tomorrow in the race, and overall I feel that we have made a positive step forward.”

Valtteri Bottas: “I was expecting that we would be fighting for a place in Q3 so I’m a little disappointed. As the track conditions were improving other car’s times were dropping but we were not able to benefit from that extra grip as much. I was also held up by traffic on my final run which cost me a few tenths. It’s not the best place to start the race but we know that around this track we can be quite strong on long runs so I expect that we will be able to move up tomorrow.”

Caterham:
Giedo van der Garde: “Similar to my teammate, the changes we made to the car since FP2 had brought in a bit too much oversteer so we used the first couple of runs to sort that out. The track was obviously improving as more rubber went down and by the time of the first run on options I was pretty happy with how the car was performing. In quali we went for two runs on the options. On the first run everything went to plan and I was up in tenth until the cars ahead went from primes to options. On the second run we timed it well but on my slowdown lap I was blocked by one of the Force Indias which was going really slow around the whole lap which meant the tyres cooled down and I probably lost about three tenths on my last quick lap. It’s funny though, because even though I finished ahead of our nearest rivals and my teammate I’m a bit gutted as I think I’d have been in the 1.42s, still not enough for Q2 but enough to show what the car’s capable of here. Anyway, we have a long race ahead tomorrow and last year the team scored a 13th here, so I’ll take the fact I finished best of our little battle and focus on getting as good a result as possible in the race.”

Charles Pic: “Overnight we made quite a few changes to the car and in FP3 we’d gone from the understeer we’d had on Friday to oversteer on the first run. A couple more changes helped fix that a bit and we found a slightly more positive balance for the second run. We started quali on softs but I still couldn’t didn’t have a balance that was working for me. The car was understeering too much to really be able to push with and that affected both my runs in Q1. It’s a shame as there’s definitely some pace in the car here, compared to our direct competitors, but we have the race to show what we can do. On race pace we have an advantage, and with the good tyre deg levels we saw on the long runs I think we have some interesting strategy options to look at for tomorrow.”

Marussia:
Jules Bianchi: “It has not been a good day on my side, so to work hard together to come back from that is a big plus and I am happy with my final run, which was good enough to split the Caterhams. In FP3 I had a problem at the rear which pushed me off track and into a spin. Thankfully I was able to avoid hitting the wall too hard but there was damage to the gearbox which meant that we needed to change. It is disappointing to have a good lap in qualifying to recover from FP3, only to then have a penalty that will mean I have to start from the back. We will work to find a good strategy to get ahead of the competition.”

Max Chilton: “It has been a difficult day overall but particularly in qualifying with the DRS issue. On the first laps of the second run I went faster, but on my second flying lap there was nothing left in the tyres, which is disappointing because I think Jules and I would have been pretty close again when it counted. Looking at what I lost from DRS and also by doing three laps versus one lap, we can say that the time loss was significant. However, tomorrow is another day and we’ll be pushing to make it a positive one.”

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