05/08/2006
NEWS STORY
Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato set a solid qualifying lap time in the 1:22's alongside the Williams F1 car of Nico Rosberg and the Scuderia Toro Rosso team. Sakon Yamamoto made an encouraging start to his Qualifying session setting a reasonable time - 1:24.016 - on his initial run.
Takuma Sato: We had a chassis problem during this morning's practice session and lost some running time in addition to the red flag situation on the track. It was then difficult to make further progress during the session, but towards the end we made our tyre choice for tomorrow. For Qualifying I caught some traffic during my first run and it was not a particularly good lap. I also had to stop at the weigh bridge which lost us quite a bit of time and because of this we had to make a pitstop instead of returning in to the garage. Unfortunately this made the tyres cool down too much and I struggled with the warm up. But in the end we should be happy with what we achieved in terms of lap times today.
Sakon Yamamoto: We analysed the data obtained from yesterday's sessions and changed the car set-up for FP3. During the session we maintained consistent laps and everything seemed to be okay. I am a little bit disappointed with my Qualifying because I made a mistake on the second set of new tyres and I was not able to improve on my first run time. It is a shame, but I have learnt a lot from today and I will try not to make the same mistake during the next Qualifying in Turkey. The car set-up for tomorrow is comfortable so I am looking forward to what will essentially be my first race here in Hungary.
Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal: It has been a difficult day, although Taku and Sakon both did a good job and I am pleased with their performances. But the car is still not quick enough and we shall have to wait until the Turkish Grand Prix before we see our complete new car package. We still maintain a gap to our competitors so we will concentrate on developing the SA06 during the mid-season break. To help us to do this we need both SAF1 Team cars to finish tomorrow's race so that we obtain more data, so I hope that we will have a good day here in Hungary.
To check out our Hungary qualifying gallery, click here