United States: The Qualifications Seen from the Stands

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – Pole position

Mark Webber – 3rd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « It was a very good qualifying session for the team, and it’s nice to secure the first pole position at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Sebastian was the fastest in every session this weekend, and he converted that to an excellent pole position, backed up by a solid third place for Mark, which puts him on the clean side of the track. So, a very good start to the weekend, but it’s important now to convert these positions into a good result. »

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McLaren

Lewis Hamilton – 2nd

Jenson Button – 12th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: Today, we witnessed an extremely exciting qualifying session, during which Lewis and Seb set the fastest laps in the final moments of Q3, both men absolutely at the top of their game. In the end, Lewis missed out on what would have been his 26th pole position in Formula 1, but it was quite close.

Jenson experienced an accelerator pedal problem in Q2, which prevented him from completing a really fast lap. It was disappointing for us and frustrating for him, obviously, but he is a brilliant and clever driver and will surely make significant progress during tomorrow’s race starting from twelfth place.

Regarding Lewis’s hopes for the race, well, you can be sure he will be very determined to do even better tomorrow than today. In a word, his goal will be to win. He had a good long stint yesterday, so even though we never underestimate our opposition, there’s no reason he can’t do it. McLaren has won 11 Grand Prix on American soil, and it would be wonderful if we could reach a dozen tomorrow.

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Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 4th [9th on the grid]

Kimi Räikkönen – 5th [4th on the grid]

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « We are really happy with our day. It was a great performance in qualifying from both our drivers, and we showed that the car had better pace in qualifying with the new exhaust configuration, which is positive. Unfortunately for Romain, we had a gearbox issue with his car this morning, which means he will incur a 5-place grid penalty, but we know that the car has good race pace; with a good start from both our drivers, there is no reason we cannot fight once again for a podium position. »

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Mercedes

Michael Schumacher – 6th [5th on the grid]

Nico Rosberg – 17th

Norbert Haug, Vice President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: « A good performance by Michael today, achieving the sixth fastest time and starting from fifth place on the grid. Unfortunately, Nico didn’t have the settings that would have allowed him to achieve a similar or better result. But, let’s wait and see if he will be better over the race distance. »

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Ferrari

Felipe Massa – 7th [6th on the grid]

Fernando Alonso – 9th [8th on the grid]

Stefano Domenicali, Team Director: « Disappointing qualifications that put us in a very difficult position for the championship, given that our main rival will start from pole position. The main issue is related to tire performance, but let’s be clear, the responsibility lies with us, because the tires are the same for everyone, and therefore, it’s up to us to try to make them work as much as possible. We need to carefully analyze how the qualifications unfolded, to understand what went wrong, but above all, we need to focus on preparing for the race. We have often said that the totals are made on Sunday afternoon: the prospects are clearly not positive, but we are well aware that the situation can be different in the race. There is no reference point for a new circuit; the unknown factors are therefore greater than usual: we have a duty to push all aspects to perfection. »

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Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 8th [7th on the grid]

Paul di Resta – 13th

Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: The Circuit of the Americas is a spectacular event for motor racing, and it was great to see so many fans here to watch the qualifying session. It hasn’t been the easiest weekend for us in terms of car setup and tire performance, but the changes made overnight improved the situation, and we looked more competitive in the final session. In the gap before qualifying, Nico felt even more confident and managed to make it into Q3 once again. With Grosjean’s penalty, Nico will start 7th. Paul had more difficulties with the tires, but he’s ready for the race and will keep fighting. The priority for tomorrow is to score some points to strengthen our position in the Constructors’ Championship.

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Williams

**Pastor Maldonado** – 10th

**Bruno Senna** – 11th

Mark Gillan, Chief Engineer in charge of operations: « Our two cars reacted well to the setup changes made overnight, which allowed for better balance this morning during Free Practice 3. The qualifying session was quite unusual, with the majority of cars on long stints to use the tires in the optimal window. Bruno and Pastor easily negotiated Q1, and Bruno was unlucky not to make it to Q3 alongside Pastor. Pastor felt that the balance wasn’t as good in Q3 as it was in the previous sessions, and he struggled to put in a good lap, ultimately finishing 10th. We look forward to tomorrow’s race and will push hard to secure points for both our drivers at the finish. »

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 14th

Daniel Ricciardo – 18th

**Laurent Mékies, Chief Engineer:** Overall, it was an unusual qualifying session, because after yesterday’s day, everyone knew it was necessary to do many laps to get the most out of the tires. Q1 was very tight and, in Daniel’s case, he was unlucky when he tried to do his two best laps while the yellow flag was out, so he didn’t make it to Q2. JEV did a good job ahead of the Saubers and Rosberg. All teams spend a lot of time working on how to get the best out of medium tires in qualifying and perhaps less time thinking about the race, which could make the race interesting. Our starting position does not prevent us from fighting for points. Even if it is the most likely scenario, a one-stop strategy is not inevitable, because nobody has enough data on Friday’s long stints and we have never raced here before.

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Sauber

Sergio Pérez – 15th

Kamui Kobayashi – 16th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « This result following the qualifying sessions is a big disappointment for the entire team. We don’t really understand what happened, as we weren’t able to match our times from the free practice 3 session. It’s now up to our engineers to change that with a view to the race. »

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Marussia

Timo Glock – 19th

Charles Pic – 20th

John Booth, Team Director: « Today was an important day for the entire team as it represents the culmination of our aggressive development program that began mid-season. We have demonstrated that we are now faster than the Caterhams after both our cars managed to outpace them during qualifying.

The day had started off a bit less well for Charles. Following his incident with Pérez during free practice 3, he missed significant track time and had to use a damaged car during the last 30 minutes of the session, which clearly impacted his performance in qualifying due to the lack of laps on a track that requires a lot of running. Nevertheless, he did a fantastic job in qualifying, and I am convinced that tomorrow’s race will give him the opportunity to showcase his ever-developing talent.

Timo had a fantastic day from the start. He and his engineers had a productive session this morning to ensure that the car optimally used the tires and to ensure a good position on the track. During qualifying, we knew it would be complicated to judge the necessary length for a stint, which is why we decided to put fuel in our cars for the session and used our mechanics to change the tires to optimize the length of the second stint. This worked perfectly, and today’s performance is truly a credit to the entire race team, who worked perfectly together to both fix the issues on Charles’ car and maximize our chances during qualifying.

We are now eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s race. The tires will be the key point, and we must ensure that we can maintain our momentum and execute our strategy perfectly to take advantage of another fantastic battle with the cars around us.

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Caterham

Vitaly Petrov – 21st

Heikki Kovalainen – 22nd

Caterham has not published the statements of the team officials.

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HRT

Pedro de la Rosa – 23rd

Narain Karthikeyan – 24th

Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director: From the first practice sessions, all teams struggled to properly heat the tires, but in our case, it’s particularly difficult due to our low downforce. This morning, with a cold track, it was difficult for us to get good lap times, and the difference with the best time was too significant. Fortunately, conditions changed this afternoon and the track temperature warmed up significantly, which, along with some adjustments to our settings, allowed us to get the tires to work well. In our case, tire wear is low, so we expect a one-stop strategy for the race. We will have to be particularly careful when we start getting blue flags to avoid causing any obstruction but also to not lose too much temperature along the way.

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