26/11/2011
NEWS STORY
Marussia Virgin Racing drivers Jerome D'Ambrosio and Timo Glock will start tomorrow's final Grand Prix of the season in Brazil from 23rd and 24th positions respectively.
As soon as the lights went green for the start of the qualifying session Timo and Jerome went out on track for an initial five lap run. It looked like the rain was getting closer so they both went out on track for their second and final run a bit earlier than planned. They each completed a total of 10 laps.
Previously, in this morning's final Free Practice session, Timo and Jerome continued their race preparation work for tomorrow's race and completed 23 and 26 laps respectively.
Timo Glock: "A bit of a disappointing Saturday I would say. The car was bad to drive this morning - suddenly from one run to another it had no stability any more. So it was difficult to go into qualifying with confidence, even though in the first run the car felt okay. I got a safe lap in then I tried to push on the second set of tyres. I had a very good first three corners but then one of the Toro Rosso's came out of the pits right in front of me and just stayed there during his out lap, so I couldn't go quicker and lost some time. It's a shame as I had to cool the tyres down before doing another lap, but the tyres are never as good as they are in the first lap, at least for me this weekend. So we have to start last, which is very disappointing, but we have to see what we can do tomorrow. Maybe the weather helps us a bit but in general it's a shame."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "It wasn't a bad qualifying but honestly it wasn't the best one either. I had a better feeling with the car this morning - I lost performance between this morning and qualifying. We need to have a look and see what is happening. I lost a bit of time in sector two on my best lap. As I say, it wasn't perfect but it's not bad and we'll push hard tomorrow to try and fight with the HRTs. If it rains tomorrow, the most important thing will be to stay on track as anything can happen in Brazil when it's wet."
John Booth, Team Principal: "A disappointing afternoon for the team and not what we hoped for going into this weekend. Timo had struggled with the balance of his car this morning and so needed to do some significant changes for qualifying, which is far from desirable although his balance did improve as a result. Unfortunately Timo's second run was disturbed by Buemi on what would have been his quickest lap and this was unfortunate. Jerome had a good morning and he was very pleased with his lap in FP3, which even before correcting for fuel was much better than his lap in Q1 which was plagued by oversteer. At some points today the weather did look like it would play a part in the proceedings, however this was not the case. Looking to tomorrow again, the threat of rain is there and we will be looking to gain back the places on the grid to finish the season as strongly as we can."
Check out our qualifying gallery, here.