05/07/2014
NEWS STORY
Romain Grosjean qualified in eleventh and Pastor Maldonado fifteenth after a mixed weather qualifying at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. Both drivers proceeded through Q1 without issue however yellow flags interrupted their final qualifying runs in Q2, preventing them from setting better lap times. Renault Sport F1 look after the fuel consumption calculations and unfortunately a calculation error on Pastor's car meant that the car did not receive sufficient fuel to complete its final qualifying run. Earlier in the day in the wet morning practice session Pastor had set the third fastest time and Romain the fourth quickest.
Romain Grosjean: "It was a good session for me despite the tricky weather conditions here today – certainly the rain was good for my garden! Q1 was tricky, but fortunately we used slick tyres at the right time. Unfortunately in Q2 I had a yellow flag in turn six otherwise I think that I would have been through to Q3. The car felt good in qualifying compared to the rest of the weekend and that is quite important for us. Everyone did a good job, worked very hard and now the car is where I like it to be. I hope that tomorrow it will be the case again and we can go from there and push as hard as we can to score points."
Pastor Maldonado: "We had a lack of fuel during the second qualifying session which meant I had to stop the car out on track. The team are investigating to find out what happened as otherwise the car felt good and we had a strong opportunity to be in the top ten. The pace was certainly there this morning and the car was doing what I wanted it to do. We had a good strategy through the difficult weather conditions today so naturally I'm a bit disappointed with where we ended up on the grid. Now the focus is to get the best result possible in tomorrow's race."
How was qualifying for the team?
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "We looked better in qualifying than of late with both drivers able to show reasonable pace in the mixed weather conditions today. This morning with Pastor and Romain in the top four in the practice session highlighted potential, but we fell short of what we could have achieved in qualifying itself. Romain was unlucky with yellow flags so had to slow on what would have been a faster lap whilst Pastor suffered from yellow flags and a fuel issue which compromised his performance."
What can be done in the race?
AP: "The grid is reasonably mixed up so there could be some different strategies out there. Of course we'll be looking to maximise every opportunity that presents itself."
Check out our Qualifying gallery, here.