06/10/2007
NEWS STORY
David Coulthard: Fifth is a great position to start from tomorrow, it's a while since I've been in the top ten. I'm a little bit surprised to be honest, I drove in exactly the same way as I have in the previous few qualifying sessions, but for some reason there are more cars are behind me here! I'm not complaining, the car obviously suits this track. The weather's due to be wet and a bit difficult tomorrow, but it can't be anywhere near as difficult as it was in Fuji last weekend. Starting in the points is obviously better than having to fight our way there from further back, as we did last week. I'm happy – I'm happy for my guys who work directly on my car and for the team as a whole. Their work's been overshadowed a little with some of the reliability problems we've had this year, so I'm pleased for them.
Mark Webber: We were concentrating on our strategy ahead of the race tomorrow and the wet weather that is forecast. The team performed very well today and it's nice timing to get both cars in to the top ten at this stage of the Championship, as it puts a little bit of pressure on Williams in our battle for fourth place. This also gives confidence to the team going into next season; I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
Christian Horner: A great team result. Finally, after having missed out by such a small margin so often this season, we have comfortably put both cars in the top ten. Our two drivers have been evenly matched all weekend and have been pushing each other. David did a very strong job and has given us our best qualifying position of the year in fifth, while Mark's lined up seventh. It's a strong result and, strategically, we believe we're well placed for the conditions that may arise tomorrow.
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support: We are very pleased with our performance today. Our positions confirm the progress we made in Jerez during our last test session. Our package performed very well, as we had hoped, and our drivers did a fantastic job in qualifying to make it into the top ten. The added bonus was that Williams did not qualify well today, which is very good for our fight for the Championship! We just hope now the weather conditions won't be too bad tomorrow as we would like to race in dry conditions.
To check out our Shanghai qualifying gallery, click here