Caterham hopeful of better race pace with set-up changes
Caterham F1 endured another difficult qualifying session with one car stuck in the garage with a hydraulics problem. For Kamui Kobayashi things went slightly better and set-up changes made after FP3 proved promising for him.
Kamui Kobayashi, car #10, chassis CT05-#02, 20th: “At the start of FP3 I had quite a lot of understeer but we improved that for the second run, and then again for the final performance run. However, I still didn’t have as much confidence in the car as I’d had at the start of FP2 so there was definitely a bit more to come for quali.
“The track temps had gone up quite a bit by the start of quali but we stuck to the plan which was two runs on supersofts. The first run was ok but I knew I could push a little harder so when the session was halted after Lewis’ crash we adapted the strategy and went for one flying lap, again on the supersofts. I think I got as much as I could out of the car – the balance did go to oversteer in the final sector and by the end of the lap the tyre deg had kicked in and I was struggling with the rear so I couldn’t find any more time.
“So now it’s all about Sunday. The weather could be a bit different to the weekend so far and hopefully it will be another crazy race! That would give us a chance, but whatever happens we’ll keep pushing and aim to come away from Germany with a good race behind us.”
Marcus Ericsson, car #9, chassis CT05-#01: “FP3 was a bit confusing for me. I couldn’t really find a balance I was happy with in any of the runs and then we had a hydraulics issue with about 15 minutes left of the session so I didn’t have a chance to do a performance run. Unfortunately that problem, confirmed by Renault Sport F1 as a hydraulic leak from the throttle, meant I couldn’t run in qualifying which is obviously disappointing. The guys in the garage worked absolutely flat out to try and fix it, something that’s hard anyway but in the heat here in Germany even harder, but they just couldn’t make it.
“Even with the problem today I think we’ll be ok tomorrow and I still think it could an improvement on the last few Grands Prix for us. Overall the car has felt better here and if we can have a clean race I want to make it the first of what I hope is better races for the whole team.”
Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 track support leader: “We recovered from a difficult FP3 session when we had a couple of issues with drivability. After changing some settings everything seemed much better for qualifying and Kamui was able to out-qualify one of the Marussias and was not too far from the Lotus. On the other car we suffered a hydraulic leak. We tried everything to fix it in time but could not get Marcus out for a run. We have however identified the origin and everything should be fine for tomorrow’s race. We’re looking forward to it and making up some positions.”
