Saturday: Van der Garde easily outpaces Pic at Caterham

Giedo van der Garde – 19th and 19th [18th on the grid]:

Like my teammate, the changes made to the car since free practice 2 brought a bit too much oversteer, so we used the first stints to fix that. The track was constantly improving with the addition of rubber, and by the time of my first stint on softs, I was happy with the car’s behavior.

In qualifying, we did two stints on soft tires. In the first stint, everything went as planned and I was 10th before the cars switched from mediums to softs. In the second stint, we had the right timing but on my slowdown lap, I was blocked by a really slow Force India which meant the tires cooled down and I probably lost 3 tenths on my fast lap. It’s funny though, because even though I finished ahead of our closest rivals and my teammate, I’m a bit disappointed because I could have been in 1:42, not enough for Q2 but enough to show what the car is capable of here. But it’s fine, we have a long race tomorrow and last year, the team finished 13th here, so I take into account that I finished the best in our little battle and I focus on getting the best result possible in the race.

Charles Pic – 20th and 21st [19th on the grid]:

« Last night, we made quite a few modifications to the car and during free practice 3, we went from the understeer on Friday to oversteer on the first stint. New changes helped to address that, and we found a slightly better balance on the second stint.

We started qualifying on softs, but I couldn’t find a balance that worked for me. The car was understeering too much to attack, and this affected both my Q1 runs. It’s a shame because the car clearly has good pace here, compared to our direct rivals, but we have the race to show what we can do. We have an advantage with our race pace, and with the good levels of degradation seen during the long stints, I think we have interesting strategic options for tomorrow.