11/03/2006
NEWS STORY
During the third practice session that took place this morning Takuma Sato was able to improve his fastest lap time set yesterday by over half a second. In a reverse of fortunes, a drift shaft problem brought Yuji Ide's running to a premature end following an impressive start to the weekend by SUPER AGURI FORMULA 1 team's new rising 'son'.
The team worked unremittingly to ensure that Yuji's car would be ready for the first qualifying session under the new knock-out format. Following an exciting and eventful first session of the afternoon, the SUPER AGURI F1 drivers qualified in 20th and 21st positions for the grid tomorrow, ahead of McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen.
Takuma Sato: "Well done to everyone in the team - I am delighted with the result. Both cars qualified and we are on the grid for the race tomorrow, which was our target for this weekend of course, but is a great achievement by the team. We have to work hard on improving our performance going forward, but for now we have accomplished everything that we wanted to achieve so far this weekend and we hope that both cars have a good race tomorrow."
Yuji Ide: "Everything happened so quickly in the qualifying session; it felt like it happened in few minutes. It was so short that I didn't have time to be nervous or excited. My first F1 qualifying time is not fast and even though I am not in the last position, I am the practically the last! However, I am confident that I could get a higher qualifying position as the season progresses and I am very happy to be able to race tomorrow and will do my very best to finish the race safely. I am very grateful to the mechanics for their hard work in making sure that I am on the grid tomorrow."
Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal: "I am glad we will be able to have both cars on the grid tomorrow. Yuji had a hard time during the practice and the red flag made the situation tougher for him, but I am glad he will be on the starting grid. We have to move up step-by-step, and I am glad that we will be able to make our very first step forward into the F1 world tomorrow."