26/09/2015
NEWS STORY
Valtteri Bottas qualified third and Felipe Massa fifth for tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix.
Both cars made it through Q1 on the prime tyre before needing only one option tyre run each in Q2 to safely make it into the top ten shootout. Neither driver had a chance to improve on their final runs in Q3 as the session was red flagged following an accident for Kvyat.
Valtteri Bottas: I'm really happy to be third again in Suzuka. It has been a good day. We made some changes after FP3 and those changes were exactly what we needed, so as a team we have really performed well. I feel comfortable with the car and around here that is very important. I enjoyed the session a lot. We have limited data on tyre wear due to the conditions yesterday, but starting third we need to target the podium tomorrow.
Felipe Massa: It was a good qualifying where we managed to save a set of tyres for tomorrow. The car was competitive even if I didn't get to show its full pace due to the red flag in Q3. After such a big accident it's good to see Daniil jump out of the car. We have a long race tomorrow which we are looking forward to and I believe we can deliver a strong performance.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: The important point to make first is that Kvyat is ok, after what was a big accident. Without the red flag we could have taken third and fourth, and that was our target coming into the session. It was a great team effort throughout the whole day and we have a competitive car. The longer runs look good and we have to convert qualifying into a strong points score over our competitors tomorrow.
Check out our Saturday gallery, here.