14/08/2004
NEWS STORY
Nick Heidfeld and Giorgio Pantano took 16th and 17th for Jordan Ford today in the starting grid for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix. Both drivers had reported better handling with a good car set-up in free practice sessions yesterday and this morning however they experienced unforeseen balance changes during their qualifying laps.
Nick Heidfeld: I was very happy with pre-qualifying but experienced a lot of oversteer and a nervous car in qualifying itself. Under those circumstances it was difficult to get more out of it. I didn't expect so much difference between the two sessions and I'm not sure what the reason is as overall this weekend we have been looking better than expected. It may be that this particular track suits our package, but I hope we can continue the trend tomorrow and in the next few races.
Giorgio Pantano: I am a little bit frustrated with how qualifying went after seeing what we did this morning, when with used tyres the car set-up and balance were quite good. When I I went out on fresh tyres though I had some problems, with the balance seeming to go completely the other way from the progress we made after free practice. I don't know what caused this but it meant we didn't find a good lap time - I lost time on the last two corners of my qualifying lap due to that. The good thing is that the balance felt better to me on used tyres so it should be okay in the race.
James Robinson: Congratulations to Bridgestone for producing an excellent tyre which has allowed them to take pole position. They have been working very hard on tyre development, which has obviously paid off for them today with a great result compared to twelve months ago at this event. Unfortunately neither of our drivers had the balance they were expecting when they were out there this afternoon and so we were not able to meet the challenge.