14/08/2004
NEWS STORY
West McLaren Mercedes driver Kimi Raikkonen will start tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix from 10th after setting a time of 1:20.570. Team mate David Coulthard's time of 1:20.897 puts him 12th.
Kimi Raikkonen: "Obviously we are not where we wanted to be as following this morning's practice we were expecting to qualify in the top five. I didn't really get the set-up perfect and was sliding too much, but hopefully the conditions will be more to our advantage tomorrow. It will be a difficult race, but I qualified seventh last year and finished second, so anything can happen."
David Coulthard: "I think we have been too conservative with our tyre choice and are paying the prize. It's hard to judge where the car is on the circuit and we are sliding around a bit. Unfortunately here in Hungary you have a problem if you qualify badly as it's really hard to overtake. However, we just need to get on with it and do the best we can in tomorrow's race, but it will be tough."
Ron Dennis: "The ambient temperature dropped significantly lower than we anticipated and our Friday qualifying tyre choice has subsequently proven to be incorrect. Tomorrow should be a hotter day which will help, but of course our grid positions are going to hamper our overall race performance. However despite the outcome of today we believe that the strong performances from Silverstone and Germany will continue for the remainder of this season's races."
Norbert Haug: "A poor result. We didn't perform as well in qualifying as we did yesterday in the Free Practice sessions when conditions were different. Maybe we were too conservative with our tyre choice as the temperatures are lower than expected, but we will see whether it was the right choice for tomorrow when we should look stronger."