Saturday: The Sauber is clearly not as fast as at Spa

Kamui Kobayashi – 15th and 9th [8th on the grid]:

« Well, we don’t have the same pace here as in Spa last week, which made qualifying difficult. That said, I’m happy to have achieved the primary goal of reaching Q3. Friday was quite difficult due to a mechanical issue that prevented me from driving as much as I wanted, and that’s also why I can’t really make any predictions about how the race will unfold. I lack experience on long stints.

After the third free practice session this morning, we made quite a few adjustments to the car’s setup, and it paid off in qualifying; I regained confidence in the car. My times in Q2 were really very good, half a second faster than in Q3, and for me, that was the maximum possible. However, it was a shame not to have managed to improve on my second lap, during my last attempt. I want to achieve a solid result tomorrow.

Sergio Pérez – 7th and 13th [12th on the grid]:

We knew it would be tight to get into the Top 10 today, but I fought hard. We’ve improved the car quite a bit since Friday, but we’re clearly not as fast here as we were in Belgium. On my last attempt in Q2, unfortunately, I was driving too close to Bruno Senna and couldn’t improve my time. I lost two-tenths of a second in the first sector. I didn’t want to back off to widen the gap because I didn’t want my tires to cool down.

The compounds are quite similar here and we do not expect degradation to be high, but ultimately, given the high temperatures, you never really know. I am very optimistic about scoring points in tomorrow’s race.