25/08/2007
NEWS STORY
The Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team will start tomorrow's 58-lap Turkish Grand Prix with Adrian Sutil and Sakon Yamamoto in 21st and 22nd positions respectively after a searingly hot qualifying session at the Istanbul Park circuit this afternoon.
As temperatures rose throughout the morning to peak at a scorching 36 C for Q1, Adrian and Sakon worked on set-up and optimising the performance of Bridgestone Potenza tyre range available this weekend.
Confident with an improvement in balance this afternoon, Adrian completed nine laps in Q1 to record a best of 1:29.861. Sakon however did not better his morning's time as he was hampered by a spin and a gearbox problem on two of his three runs. The Japanese driver will start his second ever race for the Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team in 22nd position.
Adrian Sutil: We can be quite happy here, the gap is not that big and we did the best we could with the old car. We found a good set up and the lap came together in Qualifying. During the session though it was very difficult to find a space in the traffic and I only just crossed the line 10 seconds from the flag, but I think we can be happy with the time and hope for more in the race.
Sakon Yamamoto: I am disappointed for us as we had had a fairly good weekend so far and I think we had a reasonable set-up for Qualifying. I was really looking forward to driving in it, but unfortunately in the session we had some problems; I spun and then were some problems with the gearbox and I couldn't recover as usual as gear selection was a bit strange. It's a disappointing result but I will try to do my best in the race. Our race speed is always much better.
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: A slightly disappointing Qualifying session. We always knew it was going to be a struggle using the old car but Adrian got about as much out of it as he could. Both cars did three runs, but unfortunately for Sakon he made a mistake on his first two, spinning on his second and then we had a problem with the gearbox which meant he wasn't able to complete his last run. Unfortunately he didn't set a competitive time, which is a shame as he had had a good weekend until then. As in Hungary though, we showed we could race the group in front and that has to be the aim with Adrian. With Sakon it is very important he gets a race distance under his belt.
To check out our Turkey qualifying gallery, click here