17/03/2007
NEWS STORY
Spyker has concluded its first official Qualifying session for the Australian Grand Prix with Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers in 21st and 22nd positions respectively.
With just 80 laps of the 5.3km Albert Park circuit under his belt following Friday and Saturday's free practice, Adrian Sutil recorded a best of 1:29.339, just 0.2secs from Vitantonio Liuzzi and 0.8 secs from David Coulthard.
Christijan Albers was however disappointed with his ultimate Qualifying performance following a tough start to the day. The twenty-seven year old Dutchman had only limited track time in the morning's free practice when Spyker technicians had to change his gearbox after he lost first gear halfway through the one hour session. Although Christijan was able to get a couple of laps in at the end of the hour, his experience of the softer tyre selected for Qualifying was limited. As a result, he found it difficult to find a balance and push through the faster corners and finished Qualifying with a best time of 1:31.932 after seven laps.
Adrian Sutil: 'I'm happy with laps I did and I think I could have even beaten Liuzzi's time, but coming through the last corner someone went off in front of me into the gravel and brought a lot of dust and sand onto the track so I had to be a bit more cautious through the turn. We might be at back but I'm happy with my laps, I didn't make any mistakes and hope for the best tomorrow in the race.'
Christijan Albers: 'I'm disappointed to this far behind, but I don't think this time is representative of where we really are. I lost first gear in the first session and lost a lot of time when the guys had to change the gearbox, which meant I didn't get a lot of running on the softer tyre that we ran in Qualifying. As the tyres are now so important to the set-up and handling of the car, I could not get the best out of my laps.'
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: 'We pretty much qualified where we expected and with the time difference we expected. As far as Adrian is concerned, the day went to plan. We ran on the hard and soft tyres this morning and went for the softer compound for Qualifying. Unfortunately with Christijan this morning, we lost first gear on his first run and although he got out at the end of session, his running was seriously curtailed. This affected him quite badly in Qualifying as he had no real experience of the softer tyre and was unable to get the most out of the car. But the difference to the cars in front is not that great and we'll look to ensure that we have a good race pace to be able to pick up any positions we can in the race tomorrow.'
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