A verty tight top ten - Permane
The ING Renault F1 Team’s chief race engineer, Alan Permane, talks about today’s qualifying. Giancarlo Fisichella qualified 7th as team mate Heikki Kovalainen will start tomorrow's race from 12th position.
“Pretty well, overall. We gave the brakes an endurance test as we had a few problems with them yesterday; we then evaluated our qualifying performance. It’s never easy for the drivers, as changing from a car heavy with fuel on hard tyres to a light one with soft rubber requires a certain ability to adapt! Giancarlo had a small gearbox glitch, but nothing serious.”
Did qualifying turn out as you expected?"We knew it would be very tight and that’s what happened. All cars in the top group were incredibly close to each other, and it was really difficult to break into the final part of qualifying. Heikki finished just a few hundredths off Giancarlo but it was enough to prevent him from making the cut. I have to say that Fisi put in an excellent lap.”
Had track conditions evolved since yesterday?“Not really. The asphalt was maybe a bit more slippery this morning, but when it was time to go out for qualifying we were on familiar territory. Conditions were very similar to those of yesterday.”
Source Renault
