Saturday: Karthikeyan ahead of de la Rosa at HRT for the first time in 2012
The two HRT drivers were happy with the performance of the F112, although Pedro de la Rosa admitted to slightly missing his qualification. Narain Karthikeyan, in fact, managed to get ahead of him for the first time of the year.
Narain Karthikeyan – 23rd and 22nd [21st on the grid]:
« We had very good feelings since yesterday and the car was even better today with the setup changes made. The performance was better with the first set of tires because we had some issues with the second, but I’m happy with the result obtained. We need to keep up our momentum tomorrow to try to beat our rivals in the race. »
Pedro de la Rosa – 24th and 23rd:
In all honesty, today’s qualifying session was average, but the main thing is that the car performed better than this morning. We improved our times but didn’t manage to make a perfect lap, which is necessary on this circuit. We lacked top speed with the second set of tires, and I hoped to take advantage of the slipstream, but it didn’t work out, and I couldn’t put the three sectors together. But that’s motorsport; sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. Now, we have to find the best strategy to gain positions in tomorrow’s race, but I’m confident because the car has a good pace and is consistent, so even if it’s not easy to overtake, we’ll keep trying until the end.
