Petrov outqualifies Kubica for the first time this season
For the third time this year, both Renault F1 Team cars qualified in the top 10. It is, however, the first time that rookie driver, Vitaly Petrov, outpaces his team mate Robert Kubica. The duo will start from the fourth row on the grid.
Vitaly Petrov, R30-04, P7, 1:21.229
"I think we did a good job today and I’m very happy to reach Q3 and to be starting seventh ahead of Robert because you first goal is always to be ahead of your teammate. We knew that the car would be quite good here and I have been very happy with the balance during the whole weekend. But the guys in front are still very strong so we know that we need to keep pushing to catch them. For the race tomorrow, overtaking will be very difficult, and the only real chance is at the start, but I will do my best to try and pass some guys and score some points."
Robert Kubica, R30-03, P8, 1:21.328
"We were hoping to be closer to the front today. It was looking better this morning during practice, but in Q3 I just didn’t have enough grip and had a lot of bottoming with the car, which was quite strange. My lap in Q3 was very slow – half a second slower than my Q2 run, but I just didn’t have the grip. For the race, everything will be about the first lap and the start of the race, so we hope to get a good start and make up some positions tomorrow."
Eric Boullier, Team Principal: "Today’s qualifying result confirms the strong pace that we have seen from both cars since the beginning of the weekend and especially during practice this morning. It’s good to see Vitaly in P7 and both cars are well placed to score points tomorrow. However, we struggled a bit with the option tyres in Q3 and we probably didn’t extract the maximum performance from them, so we could have been even higher up the grid. But, as I say, it’s still a good result and we know that we can be quick in the race. It will be important to be opportunistic and our target will be to get ahead of Rosberg and see if we can catch Hamilton."
Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: "To get both cars into Q3 for the third time this year is a good result for the team after a weekend where the car has been very competitive. Vitaly did an excellent job to qualify seventh, but I still feel that we could have got more pace from both cars in Q3 where we struggled more than we expected. Robert in particular was lacking grip and couldn’t repeat his lap time from Q2. Still, we saw on Friday that our race pace on high fuel was very competitive so I’m confident that we can race strongly tomorrow and hopefully have both cars finish in the points."
FREE PRACTICE 3
Robert Kubica, R30-03, P4, 1:21.066, 19 laps
Vitaly Petrov, R30-04, P7, 1:21.399, 15 laps
