Saturday: Caterham narrowed the gap on the competition

Heikki Kovalainen – 19th and 18th

I’m quite happy with the day. We didn’t manage to get the most out of the car in Q1, but my feeling was already better than in free practice 3, and on my fast lap, I got blocked behind an HRT, which probably cost me six-tenths. However, on a circuit like this, it’s the kind of problem you have to deal with. There’s some positive to take away from today, mainly that we know we’re closer to the cars ahead of us than at the end of last season, and we now have a KERS and a better overall package, so I think tomorrow’s race could be really interesting.

Vitaly Petrov – 20th and 19th

For me, it was a good qualification, maybe not what we hoped for but we know there’s more to come. We lost a bit of time yesterday, and my performance run was cut short in free practice 3 due to a hydraulic issue, but I pushed as much as possible and I think my engineer and I are figuring out how to better set up the car each time I go out on track, so the more time I spend in the car, the better I feel.

Mark Smith – Technical Director

There are always positives and negatives with sessions like today’s qualifying session. During free practice 3, Vitaly had a hydraulic leak on his car that we managed to repair before qualifying began, but it cost us the time we wanted to spend preparing the settings for qualifying, and both started Q1 with a good balance, but our final positions weren’t a true reflection of where we are in terms of gap to the cars ahead. We have a solid plan to continue improving in key areas of a car’s performance and I think we can expect to be more competitive in tomorrow’s race.