19/03/2005
NEWS STORY
West McLaren Mercedes drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya ended up fourth and seventh fastest in the first qualifying session for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix. Kimi set a time of 1:32.839 whilst Juan Pablo did 1:33.333. The second and final qualifying session is tomorrow at 11AM. Once again the running took place in hot and humid conditions with track and ambient temperatures reaching 54 and 37 degrees Celsius respectively.
Kimi Raikkonen: "Obviously we would prefer to be on the front row, but there is still another qualifying session. We are not far away from the leaders and the car feels good, so let's see what we can do tomorrow. It's obviously hot driving the car but it's not too much of a problem as I get used to it."
Juan Pablo Montoya: "My lap was OK to begin with, but then the rear of the car just started to slide on the entry into the corners and it became difficult. I didn't finish the last part of the lap as well as I would have liked which cost some more time especially at turn 14 when I understeered into the corner. We changed the tyre pressure slightly before this session so that might be the cause. However so far so good. We will see what we can do to improve our starting position in tomorrow's qualifying."
Ron Dennis: "Single lap qualifying without fuel doesn't play to the cars' ability to be kind to its Michelin tyres. Hopefully we will improve our grid positions tomorrow morning and put ourselves in with the chance of strong race."
Norbert Haug: "A good basis for tomorrow's qualifying and the race. Kimi's lap was clean and good. The two and half tenth gap can be closed. Juan Pablo was at one point a little over the limit and lost half a second when he went wide over one of the kerbs. In race trim we should look better, and we are looking forward to tomorrow."