Historic qualifying session for MF1
MF1 Racing took another historic step forward today as Tiago Monteiro drove his M16 into the second qualifying session for the first time in the team's maiden season. Monteiro recorded the 13th fastest time in the first session, but slipped to 16th position in the subsequent heat.
His teammate, Christijan Albers, was hampered by a lack of running in the morning practice session as the result of a mechanical problem. Although bad luck prevented him from demonstrating the full potential of his car in qualifying, the team remains hopeful of a strong race from both drivers tomorrow.
Tiago Monteiro "It's been a great weekend so far. I'm so happy for the team. They were so excited when I got out of the car. In fact, I think they were actually more excited that I was to get into the second session, so I'm really happy for them. They all deserve it; we've been working so hard. As you can see, for the past few races - since about Nurburgring, I would say - we've been progressing, and that's very encouraging, so I'm glad I was able to show our true pace today. We should have done it in Monaco but it didn't work out, so I'm glad for the whole team that we could accomplish this today. It feels amazing, and the car has been handling very well since yesterday. Now we've got a long race ahead tomorrow and another opportunity to show how much we've improved."
Christijan Albers "It's a shame, because I had a lot of bad luck today. We had a mechanical problem in morning practice and a misjudgement on my last timed run - we lost too much time in the garage, and I was pretty sure we would have been able to set a quick time. The good news is that the car feels nicely balanced and I have lots of spare tyres available for tomorrow!"
Colin Kolles, Managing Director "It's clear that we are continuing to make progress. I know it seems like I'm always saying the same thing, but it's true. I think it was possible for us to get both cars into the top sixteen but unfortunately, we had to call Christijan in before he could complete his timed lap because we missed getting him out by about 5 seconds. This is disappointing, but we have to look forward and keep improving the car."
James Key, Technical Director "It's very positive for us today to come out and go into the second qualifying session. It's the first time we've achieved that, and that's a very good step for the team and for the car. A little bit surprisingly, we're carrying some of the form we saw in Monaco over to Silverstone, which I must admit, I didn't fully expect. It's a terrible shame that Christijan lost all of his track time this morning. We tried to run him three times in qualifying today, which was theoretically possible, and in fact, if we had to do it again tomorrow, we'd probably do things a little bit better. But we just missed the cut at the end and I think had he got that third run in, he also could have been in Q2 because he was extremely close to Tiago's times during his first two runs. We're delighted with Tiago's drive - both he and his crew did a fantastic job - and we know Christijan will be motivated to push hard tomorrow, as always."
Johnny Herbert, Sporting Relations Manager "I think we've had this coming for the last couple of races and it's fantastic that we've finally been able to achieve getting through to the second session of qualifying. It's a shame for Christijan because we should have got both cars through. I think we sort of let him down, but both drivers did a fantastic job today. Full credit, as well, to the guys who are here, but also to the staff at the factory and at the wind tunnel. It's their hard work that keeps pushing us forward and I applaud them."
