Saturday: The Caterham drivers at the back of the pack

Charles Pic – 20th and 21st:

« We had quite a few little problems throughout the weekend, and they affected our ability to get the best out of the car here, especially with the tires. We tried several different settings during free practice 3, and the car’s balance seemed better this morning than yesterday, but between free practice 3 and qualifying, the tire behavior changed, and we couldn’t get them to work. During qualifying, we did our two runs on soft tires, but I had to work on the first one, so I didn’t have a clear lap. On the second run, I improved my time, but I still had oversteer exiting most corners and more traffic in sectors 1 and 2, which ruined my lap. With the car we currently have, we know there’s more performance, so days like today are frustrating, but we’re going to have to keep working, improve our positions, and focus to deliver a good performance tomorrow. »

Giedo Van der Garde – 22nd and 22nd:

« After two productive sessions yesterday, I wasn’t able to have the same feelings in the car during free practice 3 and it carried over into qualifying. Like Charles, I encountered a few small issues in each session and together, they set us back slightly. We are struggling to understand the tire behavior and when the track temperature rose today, it felt like starting from scratch to understand how to make the tires work. My last position in qualifying is obviously disappointing, especially because I made a mistake in turn two on my second run, pushing too hard which cost me about 4 tenths. Without that, I could have finished a bit better on the grid but we have to focus on the race tomorrow and hope to achieve the same kind of performance as in the last race in Malaysia. »