Balance problems for de la Rosa
The qualifying results reflect quite clearly the drivers’ different thoughts about their car’s set-up and performance. While Kamui Kobayashi felt quite confident in his C29 and qualified 13th for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Pedro de la Rosa wasn’t satisfied at all with his car’s balance and had to make do with 17th. On tomorrow’s grid he will move up at least one position.
Kamui Kobayashi:
C29.01 / Ferrari 056
Qualifying: 13th / 1:23.659 min (in Q2) / 3rd Practice: 14th / 1:23.908 min (24 laps)
“I had no problems in qualifying and I think with regards to my lap time and position this is what was possible today. Michael (Schumacher) is ahead of me in 12th, but he is three tenths of a second faster, which is quite a big gap. Compared to the first free practice session here, the car’s balance is better, the grip level has increased and I feel more confident. Of course I will try to score points in tomorrow’s race.“
Pedro de la Rosa:
C29.03 / Ferrari 056
Qualifying: 17th / 1:24.044 min (in Q2) / 3rd Practice: 17th / 1:24.191 min (19 laps)
“It was a tough qualifying for me. Since this morning I haven’t felt comfortable in the car, and it just didn’t feel like it did yesterday. We put on more downforce, but we never managed to get a good compromise between rear end stability and top end speed. However, I think the car will perform better in the race and I will see what I can do.“
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “We expected the characteristics of this high speed track wouldn’t best suit our car, so under the circumstances Kamui’s 13th position is really good. Pedro struggled today, so we have to analyse everything to understand why.”
James Key, Technical Director: “We worked hard overnight looking at the problems we had on Friday. We found one on Kamui’s car with some aerodynamic components, which didn’t help, and also the brake system was a bit problematic for him. So we made the respective modifications on his car and some minor changes on Pedro’s. This morning Kamui was happy with the car and had more confidence. Pedro struggled a little bit with a lack of consistency, so we had to work on this before qualifying. In Q1 a Force India went out, so it was just a matter of putting in a decent lap time to make it to Q2 and save some tyres. In Q2 P13 for Kamui was okay, as the best we expected was P12, and he lost a couple of tenths on his last run. The race speed of the car and its top speed are competitive, so given his strong race performances we can look forward to a good day for him tomorrow. Pedro continued to struggle with his car. We added some downforce before qualifying, but things were looking a bit tricky, particularly under braking. We have to look into it to understand why it was more of an issue for him today than yesterday.”
