11/06/2011
NEWS STORY
Despite failing to qualify within the 107% limit, Virgin driver Jerome d'Ambrosio will take part in tomorrow's race.
The Belgian, who crashed heavily during Friday's second session, necessitating the use of the team's spare chassis, posted a best time of 1:19.414 during Q1, 0.425s off the 107% limit.
However, race stewards, appreciating the youngster's lack of track-time due to his crash and appreciative of the fact that his times in the other sessions were competitive gave him the go ahead to start.
"We are grateful to the stewards for permitting him to race," said team boss John Booth, "having considered that he did set a suitable lap time during a free practice session, that he has consistently met the criteria under Article 36.3 this season and the extent of the overnight repairs required by the damage incurred in Free Practice 2.
"After the disappointment of qualifying it is both a relief and a justifiable reward to the mechanics for their substantial efforts through the night," he added. "It will be a tough race for him having been so unhappy with the car this morning so we will spend the evening looking at what we can do to help him have a better race."
"It's been a tough 24 hours since my crash yesterday," said d'Ambrosio, "both for me and the team. Getting the car built overnight and running again was a huge task for the guys but only half the battle as we then had just this morning's free practice session to try to arrive at a setup that would enable us to qualify. In the end it wasn't enough and I'm just very disappointed for myself and the team to have missed out. The car felt completely different to yesterday and clearly Timo's time is more representative of what we should have achieved in qualifying. I am very appreciative of the fact that the Stewards have permitted me to race and I'm now focusing on tomorrow."