04/07/2015
NEWS STORY
The Manor Marussia F1 Team enjoyed a very positive qualifying session on home asphalt today, with a delighted Will Stevens extracting even more performance from the team's latest development upgrade, introduced this weekend here at Silverstone. He finished in 19th position but reduced the gap to the team's competitors by 0.7s versus the pre-upgrade delta, with the fastest lap of his second run a 1:37.364.
Roberto was less happy with his qualifying result after a more challenging weekend overall. He ended the day in 20th position, with a time of 1:39.377.
Will Stevens: "I'm really happy with my performance today. Things really couldn't have gone any better for me in my first British Grand Prix qualifying session. The upgrades have been working well for us all weekend and they've given me more confidence in the high-speed corners. In my second run everything just came together for the lap and I was able to show the potential of the developments we brought here, so it's a really nice result for the team's hard work over the past few months. It's been a very special weekend so far; the support here at Silverstone has been incredible. Tomorrow is the big day of course and I can't wait to line up on the grid and go racing in front of my home crowd. The conditions could be quite mixed, so it could make for an interesting race. Who knows what could happen?"
Roberto Merh: "Unfortunately it wasn't a very positive qualifying for me today, which is a real shame at our home race. On the last lap I had some snap oversteer in Turn 9, and my time got deleted. We haven't had a strong weekend on my side, so we need to analyse that and understand why. I'm hopeful that we can have a better race tomorrow though."
John Booth, Team Principal: "We're very satisfied with the way our new developments have translated into a significant qualifying performance step this weekend, so I'd like to acknowledge the determined efforts of everyone trackside and back at our temporary HQ at Silverstone for this achievement during what is still a period of relative infancy versus the rest of the field. Will did a great job and is clearly enjoying the very special experience of his first home Grand Prix here. Roberto has struggled rather more, but I am sure he will bring everything together for the race tomorrow. I would also like to thank the fans here at Silverstone. They're a fantastic crowd and we really enjoy and benefit from their incredible support for our team, so I hope we can put on a good show for them in the race."
Check out our Saturday gallery, here.