Saturday: HRT delighted despite a last row on the grid
The HRT team could do no better than to place its two cars on the last row of the grid, but the team's two drivers, Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan, believe there is something to be happy about and are eager to race tomorrow.
Pedro de la Rosa – 20th and 23rd:
« It was a very good qualifying session because towards the end, I was nine-tenths faster than my time, but in the last two corners, I had a car in front of me, and I lost two places. We all need to respect each other, but now we need to look ahead. Putting that aside, I think we had two good sessions this morning and this afternoon during qualifying; the car was good, and we could have been closer to the Marussia. But the most important thing comes tomorrow, and we need to focus to get a good start and fight until the end. We expect to have a dry track, but given the past few days, anything is possible. »
Narain Karthikeyan – 23rd and 24th:
«Yesterday, Free Practice 2 took place in the rain, and today I was able to drive a bit more on the dry track because I only had an hour this morning to adapt to the circuit (Clos replaced him during Free Practice 1 held on a dry track on Friday, editor’s note). But despite that, we did a good job. In qualifying, we finished just 0.3 seconds behind Pedro, so I’m happy. After Free Practice 3, I expected the gap to be bigger, but we managed to improve right before qualifying. Tomorrow, we’ll see what the weather brings, but regardless of the outcome, it will be a tough battle, and we’ll try to join the fight with our rivals.»
