14/04/2007
NEWS STORY
At an unusually humid Bahrain International Circuit, the Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team has qualified with Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers in 20th and 22nd postions for tomorrow's Grand Prix.
Running on the medium Bridgestone Potenza tyres, both drivers completed two runs in the first 15-minute Qualifying segment. After fine-tuning the set-up in the third and final practice session this morning, Adrian put together a quick lap on his last run and will the start the race from the penultimate row of the grid in front of the Red Bull of David Coulthard and team-mate Christijan Albers.
Christijan worked to improve the handling of his F8-VII today and, although was not completely satisfied with the balance over one lap, goes to the race tomorrow confident of better handling over longer runs.
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: We didn't make as much progress today as we had hoped overnight. The balance wasn't quite as good for both drivers as yesterday, but overall it's been a very solid weekend and we look forward to keeping up with the group in front and a solid finish tomorrow. We know that the most important thing is to get two race finishes.
Adrian Sutil: It was difficult to put together the perfect lap out there, but I am happy with the performance and can improve tomorrow for sure. We worked on the car in the first practice session and as the track conditions did not change a whole lot to the afternoon, we knew what to expect. I think we're in pretty good shape for the race, we've got to try to make a good start and overtake in the first corner to get some cars behind us, but the goal's got to be to get through the race without any mistakes.
Christijan Albers: The first outing in the practice session this morning was a little bit difficult and we changed a few things for Qualifying, although I still found it difficult to turn in and I lost some time there. It's disappointing to be at the back again, but we know that during the race we've more of a chance of staying with the field.
To check out our Bahrain qualifying gallery, click here