20/08/2005
NEWS STORY
After an incident-filled qualifying session, which saw many drivers run wide or spin on the all-new Istanbul Park circuit, Christian Klien and David Coulthard finished in tenth and twelfth place respectively. They will line up in the same positions on tomorrow's grid, for the start of the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix.
David Coulthard: We were lucky to get away with twelfth there! It's difficult to know what to expect when you're driving on new tyres; we ran on a new set this morning and were actually slower than we had been on scrubbed ones. As a result, I was cautious at the beginning of the qualifying lap when the grip levels were a little unpredictable. As the lap progressed, I began to push a bit more, but ran wide at Turn eight and nine due to dust that my tyres had picked up on that part of the track. It's a challenging circuit that's for sure. There are lots of difficult corners, but the trickiest thing is the bumps. When the car unloads over those, things get pretty interesting!
Christian Klien: That was a difficult lap. It's hard to judge what the conditions are going to be like when you're second out on the track, but the balance of the car felt good and I was able to push quite hard. I didn't make any mistakes during qualifying, which is really important here as the track's so demanding.
Christian Horner, Sporting Director: Considering we went out first and second for today's qualifying session, I think it's a good result to have Christian in tenth and David 12th. Both have good strategies in place for the race and, as we showed competitive pace in our longer runs this morning, I think we can look forward to an interesting afternoon tomorrow.