31/10/2009
NEWS STORY
Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button qualified in fourth and fifth positions respectively today for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which takes place at the Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday.
The action began in daylight with darkness rapidly falling over the course of the qualifying hour and the floodlights coming on to illuminate the track. Rubens and Jenson ran consistently in the top ten for the first two sessions, favouring the harder prime tyre, and progressing easily through to the final qualifying session.
A close battle at the front in Q3 saw Rubens put his Brawn-Mercedes car on the second row of the grid in fourth position, with team-mate Jenson, who was struggling with understeer, on the third row in fifth place ahead of tomorrow's 55-lap race.
Rubens Barrichello: "It was a good qualifying session for us today and I'm quite happy with fourth position and what we have achieved. The car is still very competitive but the Red Bulls and McLarens seem to be ahead of us here. It's been challenging to get the right set-up throughout the weekend as the sessions are taking place in very different track and ambient conditions. The car seems to improve towards the end of the day with the cooler temperatures so we can hope that the track comes towards us tomorrow. It's very close with Sebastian for second position in the Championship and I'll be going to be flat out for the best result."
Jenson Button: "The car has felt good here all weekend and the first two sessions went well in qualifying today. Unfortunately in Q3 when we were running with high fuel and new tyres, I started to get massive vibrations every time that I hit the brakes which made the steering wheel shudder. With such a smooth circuit any kind of vibration just leads to understeer which made the car quite a handful to drive. It's frustrating as we had the potential for a better performance today and should have been challenging for the first row behind Lewis. Hopefully we can solve the issue before the race and I'm looking forward to a good fight tomorrow."
Ross Brawn: "We went into qualifying in pretty good shape this evening having confirmed some of our conclusions on the tyres during the practice session this afternoon. The qualifying hour went to plan in Q1 and Q2 although we struggled, like many others, with traffic and achieving clear laps when the tyres were at their best. Unfortunately in Q3, Jenson suffered with a significant vibration on his last set of tyres which we are now investigating and this compromised his performance. However fourth position on the grid for Rubens and fifth place for Jenson is a good result. We should be in reasonable shape for the race tomorrow and are looking forward to the challenge of finishing the season on a high."