09/06/2007
NEWS STORY
Overnight showers in Montréal made for difficult track conditions once again this morning. Super Aguri drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson both completed trouble-free Practice programmes and ended the session happy with the balance of the SA07.
A Red Flag situation at the start of the afternoon's Qualifying session meant a change in strategy for the remainder of Q1. Takuma set a fastest lap time of 1:16.743 which saw him comfortably go through to Q2 and he will lead the Honda-powered teams' for the start of the Canadian Grand Prix from 11th position on the grid.
Takuma Sato: I am pleased with the result and we are in a very good position for the race tomorrow. We were expecting to have a tough weekend in Canada as our circumstances make it difficult to fully update the car as much as we would like to. However, we made good progress during the practice sessions and a good step forward once again, so I am pleased that the car showed good performance and that it all came together today. Hopefully we can have a strong race tomorrow.
Anthony Davidson: It was a difficult Q1 after the Red Flag and I think it made everyone change their plans very quickly. We got one run in, but I think that a lot of the other teams got two runs in and that was always going to make it extremely tight. I think we both drove a good lap for only doing one quick run. I got rear graining as well on my tyres for the last half of the lap and that's where all my time disappeared to. I think that without the graining I would have easily made it through to Q2. I was 5/10ths up on my time from this morning and I was really happy with my times, but when I got round to Turn 10 it all fell away and I ended the lap on a 17.5 and that's a real shame.
Graham Taylor, Sporting Director: The Red Flag during Q1 set us on the back foot a little bit this afternoon, but we recovered well I think to get the cars out at the right time. Unfortunately for Anthony we weren't able to set a good enough lap time to get him through to Q2, missing out by a thousandth of a second. It is disappointing because his Sector 1 and Sector 2 times looked more than capable of getting us through to the next round. Taku did not have a great run, but it was good enough to get us through to Q2 where, with a structured plan, we could perform at our rightful place. He completed a good lap to put himself P11 on the grid and give us the best option for strategy for tomorrow.
To check out our Canada qualifying gallery, click here