23/10/2010
NEWS STORY
Virgin Racing narrowly missed out on the new teams' 'pole' in today's qualifying for the inaugural Korean Grand Prix. Timo Glock enjoyed a reasonably strong Q1 session, which ended with him separated from Jarno Trulli by just 0.2secs. He was however pleased to displace Heikki Kovalainen and split the Lotus pair.
Lucas di Grassi experienced a more frustrating session. He encountered traffic on his first timed lap and made a small mistake on his second, so was unable to get the best from the Option tyre. The pair will start tomorrow's 55 lap race from the 10th and 11th row of the grid and on the clean side of the track following a penalty for Renault's Vitaly Petrov.
This morning the drivers once again had to contend with a dusty and therefore gripless track, which caused them to experience tyre graining issues, but as was the case yesterday it continued to clean up progressively with every lap.
Timo Glock: "Today was a pretty good qualifying session for me. We made the right change from this morning's free practice to qualifying and I had a very good first run. The second one was good as well and I was able to get everything possible out of the car. I couldn't do any more so I am happy with the result and due to Petrov's penalty we move over to the clean side of the track, which will help us at the race start tomorrow. It should be an interesting race and I'm looking forward to it."
Lucas di Grassi: "It was not a very good qualifying for me today. I did not manage to properly use my second set of qualifying Option tyres as in my two timed laps I got traffic and then I made a mistake, so for sure there is more to come. This is a track that improves all the time - and very quickly - and you need to be 'on it' the whole time. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and our first Korean Grand Prix. In the first few corners of the track there are a lot of overtaking opportunities, so it should be an interesting start. The race is also very long and a lot of things can happen, so we will see what happens as it unfolds."
John Booth, Team Principal: "A strong qualifying session for Timo today, who was unlucky to be pipped at the very end of the session for the new teams' pole, but at least he will start from the clean side of the track following Petrov's penalty. Lucas wasn't able to get the best out of the car but we are sure there is more to come from him in the race tomorrow. We are still experiencing quite a lot of graining on the tyres, which will make the choice for tomorrow interesting, and there is also the possibility of rain. The drivers report that the track modifications made overnight have been successful, so all credit to the circuit for their hard work and we are looking forward to the inaugural Korean Grand Prix tomorrow."
To check out our Yeongam qualifying gallery, click here