Saturday: Petrov and Caterham could still hope for better
The Caterham drivers delivered a solid performance in qualifying, but they could have hoped to do slightly better. Vitaly Petrov is ahead of Heikki Kovalainen, who struggled to find the right balance in his CT01 before qualifying.
Vitaly Petrov – 18th and 18th [after Lewis Hamilton’s demotion]:
I am very happy with today’s result. It’s a great feeling to have put everything together in qualifying today and I would like to thank the team who did a great job and helped me do everything to complete a final lap like this. There was even more to extract since I made a small mistake in the second sector that might have cost me two or three tenths, but between Free Practice 3 and qualifying, we found the right balance with the Softs and a KERS mapping that allowed us to exploit it to the maximum, so it was great to see that it paid off.
Tomorrow’s race will be interesting. I think a lot will depend on who uses their rear tires the best, and as we’ve seen earlier this season, we can fight with the cars ahead of us on Sunday, so hopefully we can build on this afternoon’s performance, and who knows what might happen.
Heikki Kovalainen – 19th and 19th [after Lewis Hamilton’s demotion]:
« I am not unhappy with today’s result, but we certainly could have gotten more out of the car this afternoon. I made a mistake in turn three that cost me a bit of time, but above all, I couldn’t really find settings that satisfied me all weekend. We tried different things to find a decent balance, but for various reasons, we couldn’t find a compromise for today’s qualifying.
We will put that behind us and look towards tomorrow where our aim will be to show the same kind of race pace that we had in the first four Grand Prix. If we manage to preserve the tires, I think we’ll be fine.
