09/06/2006
NEWS STORY
Racing Engineering - Adam Carroll (Pole) Javier Villa (19th)
Sophocles famously stated there is no success without hardship, and Racing Engineering can only agree: all of the early season difficulties suffered by the team were worthwhile if they were the price to pay for today's pole position by Adam Carroll at Silverstone.
Adam was immediately on the pace this morning at his home circuit, finishing the free practice session just one tenth off the top spot to place third, which inspired the Ulsterman to dig even deeper for qualifying. Knowing the car had good pace today, he went out and set the fastest lap of the session on his first flying lap, and then waited to see if there was any reply. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton got close, and while Nelson Piquet did just beat it he was set to lose his fastest lap for a penalty picked up in free practice, allowing Adam to watch the finish of the session from the pitwall before being congratulated by everyone in the pitlane.
Sadly for the team, Javier Villa was unable to take advantage of his teammate's good form: a combination of a different set up to Adam and it being Javi's first visit to the famous circuit meant that he was unable to match Adam's time. He will line up twenty second on the grid for tomorrow's first race.
Team principal Alfonso de Orleans was euphoric after the session, stating: I've never been more ecstatic to say that the boys did a great job! Not only the mechanics, not only John Gentry, not only Adam himself: this was a team effort. Obviously Adam did a great job; he drove a blinding lap, but John had to help him set up a good car, and the mechanics had to put it all together. I think this is a good start to the weekend, and hopefully he can now turn this pole position into a win: that's the hard bit. For Javi it was difficult because it's a new circuit for him again, and he has a very different set up to Adam, so he couldn't get any help from Adam. We're all learning, and I think, little by little, Javi will find his way."
Adam Carroll was obviously over the moon about the result, noting: "It's pretty good, isn't it! Obviously we've had a pretty rough season so far, so it's a big boost for everyone at the team and myself. We've been creeping up to the front, and I know the results haven't been there but we've been getting much better; and we've got the car up there now, which is great."
Javier Villa congratulated his teammate before adding: It was not so bad, but not good for me today. The first run was okay but after that there was too much oversteer, and then we ended up with a lot of yellow flags so we came in to change onto the second set. After that it was a bit better in the car, good in the high speed corners, but then we had understeer, which is worse than oversteer for me! For tomorrow it will be difficult: 35 laps is a lot for the tyres, but we'll see what happens."
Nelson Piquet Jr (4th)
Nelson Piquet Jr set the fastest time in today's qualifying session, but a penalty from a yellow flag infringement in this morning's free practice stripped him of his pole position time, and means that he will begin tomorrow on the second row of the grid, from fourth position.
The day had started very well for Nelson when he topped this morning's free practice session with a lap time of 1:31.012, ahead of Gimmi Bruni, Adam Carroll and Lewis Hamilton. The whole session had gone well, with Nelson consistently fast throughout the 30-minutes. However, after the session the 20-year-old was deemed to have passed a slow-moving Gimmi Bruni under a yellow flag, and the stewards ruled that he would get his fastest lap taken away in the afternoon's qualifying.
Nelson set a storming lap of 1:29.029 seven minutes before the end of qualifying, beating Adam Carroll's provisional pole time by 0.075s, but was then only able to set a time of 1:29.160, which is the time that stood for his qualifying position. It was an intense battle for the top spot, and at the end the pole time to Nelson's fourth position was divided by just 0.056s.
Tomorrow's 36-lap GP2 feature race will get underway at the earlier time than usual of 2.30pm, due to a reshuffle of the British GP2 weekend schedule.
Nelson Piquet Jr: "The position is okay but I have to say I'm really upset by the stewards decision this morning that effectively took away my pole. But there's nothing that we can do, that was their decision so we just have to get our heads down and get on with it. I did two good laps in qualifying, unfortunately the second one was not quite as good as the first and so we start fourth. We have a good car that we can still do some improvements with and the team is very capable in the race. I'm not ruling out a win here, I am very determined and I am sure it's possible for us to do it. I can't wait to get in the car tomorrow for this race."
Trident Racing - Andreas Zuber (6th) Gimmi Bruni (8th)
Andreas Zuber will start tomorrow’s feature race from a very good P6, Gimmi Bruni will start from the fourth row. For the Austrian driver this is his best position out of all the six qualifying session of this GP2 Series 2006 championship. One more demonstration of his constant improvement, as stressed by his engineer Roberto Costa: “Andreas did a very good and progressive job. Yesterday we did the trackwalk and discussed about paths and details of this circuit he did not know at all. It’s evident that he has been able to take out the maximum from this theoretical work. Really good”.
Gimmi Bruni: "This morning I finished the free practice at P2 and the car was very well balanced. This afternoon the car was oversteering and, even if I improved the morning lap time, I have not been able to improve as I wished. Anyway here in Silverstone starting from the fourth row does not mean you cannot get a good result at the end of the race".
Andreas Zuber: "This is my best GP2 Series qualifying. Considering I got it here where I never raced I am very satisfied. I had two chances to do even better but I lost the first because of the traffic and the second because I did a mistake. But it is alright like this. I wish to thank the team for giving me once more a good car and good advices. I will do my best to pay them back during the race of tomorrow".
DPR Direxiv - Clivio Piccione (9th) Mike Conway (20th)
British F3 Championship points leader, Mike Conway, made his GP2 debut here today under the watchful gaze of many of his British compatriots, and in front of an interested F1 paddock. Replacing the injured Olivier Pla (who broke a bone in his hand and one in his wrist at Monaco), he qualified in 20th place but, said his race engineer, Chris Gorne, "He did a solid job and applied himself well. He dialled himself in slowly this morning and felt his way round the track rather than trying to prove his worth in just one or two laps."
With just 30 minutes of practice under his belt this morning, Conway knew that this afternoon's 30-minute qualifying session was going to be a challenge. "I knew it was going to be tough with limited running, but it was good. The more I learn now, the better it is for the future. I'm sure the race will be better than today as long as we keep doing what we're doing and going in the right direction. I'm aiming for a top ten finish but we'll see how the race pans out.
"It's a big leap between F3 and GP2 here, especially the power, brakes and grip. It's a heavier car so you have to be bit sharper with correcting. Maggots and Becketts are really fast in the GP2 car and it will be interesting to see how close you can follow others through there. I knew it was going to be very different and very tough so I'm not too disappointed with where I am after qualifying."
For DPR Direxiv™ regular, Monégasque driver Clivio Piccione, there were mixed emotions at the end of the qualifying session. "I'm happy because I'm only a couple of tenths off pole but I'm in p9 which isn't so good! When I'd done a 1:29.5 I thought…"that's really great" but then everyone else got quicker. I did my best. We didn't have a really good session in the morning so I think we did okay. The race is going to be really hard on the cars, especially on the tyres if it stays this warm, but we're in a good points-scoring position."
Team Principal David Price said after qualifying: "I think we should have stopped the session when we were 1st and 11th ! It's hard to do a quick lap here because there are a lot of places which really test the traction of the car. When the tyres start to go off you are really fighting the back end of the car. Overall I think they both did a respectable job.
DAMS - Ferdinando Monfardini (12th) Franck Perera (13th)
One of the main difficulties in the 30 minutes GP2 qualifying is to find a clear lap without yellow flag during the first 2 laps of each new set of tyres. Both DAMS drivers experienced this problem today and lost most of their quick laps due to race facts and traffic. Finally Ferdinando took 12th place and Franck 13th.
Ferdinando Monfardini: This result is good for me as we had to improve in qualifying and we will start 7 places ahead of the position we had in the previous events. The team gave me a very good car, it was more balanced, with good traction. I did my time in the 1st lap of my second set of tyres, then I had yellow flags at every other attempt which makes us think we have lost quite a lot with this, but this is racing. We have a good potential for tomorrow, the car is exactly what I like for this kind of track, we have done some good results with bad qualifying before so we have a real chance to get good points tomorrow.
Franck Perera: I am really disappointed. In the first 10 minutes the car was good, I was in the pace and I took 3rd place. Then we stopped to make some changes on the car, I did not feel so good with the car on my 2nd set of tyres but the main problem was traffic. On my 2 quick laps there were several slow cars in the final corners so I had to slow down even if I improved quite a lot in the first 2 sectors. I am really upset about this because when you have slow cars on the line there is nothing to do, our target was top 5 and we lost all chances to do it.
Super Nova - Jose Maria Lopez (18th) Fairuz Fauzy (23rd)
Experiencing unusually hot conditions here at Silverstone, all 26 GP2 cars went out twice today for free practice followed by qualifying at 3.30pm local time. Both Super Nova drivers complained of over steering and lack of grip in the morning practice, although Jose Maria Lopez began quickest. Between sessions the team mechanics worked hard to improve the cars, only to be occur more problems during qualifying. Fairuz Fauzy spun off mid session causing damage to the right hand side and rear of the car, and so will start 23rd for tomorrows 2.30pm race. Jose Maria Lopez who qualified 18th, struggled with similar problems as earlier and said the car just didn't have the speed, even on new tyres.
Adam Carroll dominated the session qualifying for tomorrows race in pole position for Racing Engineering, followed by the two ART cars, Lewis Hamilton and Alexandre Premat in 2nd & 3rd.
Team Principal - David Sears: "Fairuz Fauzy had a big accident this afternoon and unfortunately ended the session then 23rd for tomorrows race. Jose was very slow throughout all of qualifying. There are some real problems that the team need to tackle & resolve in order to be in with a fighting chance."