Canada: Qualifications Seen from the Stands

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – Pole position

Mark Webber – 5th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « It’s fantastic to secure the pole in Montreal. It really was a tough qualifying session and it’s very easy for things to go wrong in a session like that. Simply getting both cars into Q3 was a good result, so clinching the pole with Sebastian and the 5th place with Mark for tomorrow’s Grand Prix is a very good starting position. »

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Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – 2nd

Nico Rosberg – 4th

Ross Brawn, Team Director: « It was an unusual qualifying session this afternoon, with both our drivers using intermediates throughout. The team managed the situation well, putting the cars on track at the right time, and we saw how difficult it was to achieve that today. Both our drivers did a fantastic job; Lewis secured his third consecutive front row while Nico finished 4th despite a radio problem that made communication difficult when he was on track. As we often see in these conditions, some cars are far from their position compared to the dry, and that should make the race exciting. »

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Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 3rd

Pastor Maldonado – 13th

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: « Changing conditions today made things complicated for all the teams. We feel like we’ve made another step forward in terms of performance, but ultimately, today was mostly about capitalizing on these conditions. We worked well as a team to be in the best position on track at the right time, and the result was this 3rd place. If the track is dry tomorrow, it will be difficult to maintain this position, but we will fight for points with both cars. It’s a well-deserved result for Valtteri and the whole team, and it gives us a real boost after all the hard work put in by everyone. Pastor will start outside the top 10 because he couldn’t complete his fast laps in Q2 due to the red flag and traffic, so he’s going to push hard to score some points tomorrow. »

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 6th

Felipe Massa – 16th

Pat Fry, Technical Director: Today’s qualifying was extremely complicated, and its outcome was largely influenced by variable weather conditions. In such situations, drivers must be able to do the right number of stints in all three parts of the session. Keeping this in mind, we have to pay attention to the amount of fuel we put in the cars, making the right tire choices for a constantly evolving track due to intermittent rain. In fact, we had some difficulty heating our tires, and the track here is less abrasive, making it more complicated to get the right feel with the tires. Fortunately, overtaking is possible here, and with his starting position on the grid, Fernando could certainly attack. It will be harder for Felipe because he starts much further back. But in recent races, we have always had a good race pace, and we hope that tomorrow the weather will be better so that we can maximize our potential.

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 7th

Daniel Ricciardo – 10th [11th on the grid after penalty]

Laurent Mekies, Head of Performance: « A bit like Monaco two weeks ago, it was a complicated qualifying session for everyone, especially the drivers. For the engineers on the pit wall, it was important to send the cars out on track at the right time, while for the mechanics in the garage, they had to follow all the instructions received. Overall, things went well since we placed both our cars in Q3, which is a good step forward. Obviously, you always want more and we feel that we had the potential to do a little better in Q3. Nevertheless, these are two good starting positions for tomorrow, where the weather forecasts indicate very different conditions, and from our place on the grid, we hope to score points with both our cars. »

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Force India

Adrian Sutil – 8th

Paul di Resta – 17th

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Director: Another excellent effort from Adrian to qualify in 8th position considering today’s conditions. He struggled to make the intermediates work, but he did very good laps when it mattered to secure his place in the top 10. Paul’s session was disrupted by a small software issue, which meant he missed the best track conditions and couldn’t show his true potential. When he went out at the end of Q1, his best lap was compromised by Rosberg spinning in front of him. This proved very costly and gave Paul a lot of work to do in the race. We know he will stay focused tomorrow and with the dry weather expected, he should hopefully demonstrate the true pace of his car.

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Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 9th [10th on the grid after penalty]

Romain Grosjean – 19th [22nd on the grid after penalty]

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: « It was a disappointing day for us. Romain was unable to set a good lap in the first part of qualifying, which means he will start at the back of the grid. Kimi also struggled and will start 9th, which is not what we wanted. The E21 clearly wasn’t working well in the wet conditions we experienced today. We opted for a setup that was rather dry-focused, which, although it cost us today, should benefit us tomorrow if the weather stays dry. We clearly did not expect to have as much water as we saw on track during qualifying. »

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 11th [10th on the grid]

Esteban Gutiérrez – 15th

Tom McCullough, Track Engineering Manager: « After a challenging Friday, we extracted much more from the car today, and the drivers handled the tricky conditions very well during these qualifying sessions. In the end, Nico was unlucky with his last lap before the red flag. He exited the final corner at a good pace when the red flag came out. His lap time would have easily allowed him to advance to Q3. It’s a bit unfortunate, but starting from 11th and 15th positions, we have a good chance to score points on a circuit like this. The car should perform well in the race tomorrow. »

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McLaren

Sergio Pérez – 12th

Jenson Button – 14th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: « A tough session for everyone – but ultimately, things didn’t go our way today. In Q2, we put both our drivers on their second set of intermediate tires when they encountered yellow flags, and then a red flag. We couldn’t get the fast laps we needed.

Subsequently, when the red flag came out, we only had two minutes to get back on the track and set a time, so it was going to be difficult to go out and improve. Jenson missed starting his lap by about a second, and Checo had too much traffic and struggled to heat up his tires. As a result, we didn’t get a car into Q3 for the first time this year.

But, with Jenson and Checo, we have a fantastic driver duo who will clearly do their best tomorrow. The unpredictable weather conditions show no signs of improving, and we will push to maximize every opportunity available in what should be a long, tough, and unpredictable race. There is still much to do.

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Caterham

Charles Pic – 18th

Giedo Van der Garde – 22nd [21st on the grid]

Caterham has not published statements from the team’s representatives.

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Marussia

Max Chilton – 21st [20th on the grid]

Jules Bianchi – 20th [19th on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: « The rainy conditions made the day difficult for the team. Free practice 3 presented more than the usual challenges with only half an hour of running, however, at least both our cars were able to use the super soft tires at the end and Max had a very good end to the session. Jules did not get the best out of these tires by running wide and driving on a wet track with dry tires, nonetheless, we could see, overall, that the cars were pretty much as expected after the changes made overnight. The qualifying session was obviously very difficult. We thought we needed to try the super softs, however, like most on track, we immediately stopped to switch to intermediates. While there wasn’t anything very bad with the lap times, traffic and weather conditions didn’t help to make the most of it. We are much happier with our performance on dry tires, even though there’s still a risk of rain for tomorrow, it seems more likely to have a drier track than today. We are looking forward to this scenario in order to make the best possible comeback. »

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