HRT outpaces another team's car for first time in dry qualifying
Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna qualified their Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team, cars 24th and 22nd respectively for tomorrow’s Turkish Grand Prix in a dry and partially cloudy qualifying session. It was another milestone for the Spanish team as Senna outpaced another team’s car for the first time in a dry qualifying session on his way to 22nd on the grid.
Dr. Colin Kolles: “I am pleased with the times of Bruno Senna. In qualifying he improved from the morning session. I was hoping for the cars to be a bit higher. Things are looking good, Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna kept their cars out of trouble which is a good step towards a safe race.”
Karun Chandhok: “We seem to have a straightline deficit to Bruno which is costing us about four tenths. It's been a tough choice on which tyres to use and unfortunately for me, the prime tyre that we used wasn't the right one as Bruno found a chunk of time on the option tyre. The guys are looking into the straight line issue for tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. Certainly as a team this weekend we're more competitive than we have been all season and are closer to Virgin so let's see how tomorrow.”
Bruno Senna: “The qualifying was good today and the lap was quite decent. We still have our best performance in qualifying. We were close to the Virgins and could split them. Maybe tomorrow we have an interesting race. The car balance was better and we progressed on that. The car was good and we managed to find a compromise in the setup and so the car was good to drive. It gave me a lot of confidence today and I could push. I felt quite comfortable in it and and hopefully we can keep this for the race and then fight more with the other teams. It is going to be a very tough race, for sure. Depending on how everything is going. You can rest a little bit on few laps and then you can push harder again. It will be a long and tough race tomorrow with 58 laps. It is this first anti clockwise circuit of the season and not easy for anyone. But we are all fit so we are fine.”
