Saturday: Gutiérrez puts his Sauber in Q3 for the first time
Esteban Gutiérrez was the surprise of the qualifying session in Singapore, with the Mexican qualifying for Q3 for the first time. He hopes to take advantage of this 10th place on the grid to fight for points, but he will have to watch out especially for his teammate who will start just behind him.
Esteban Gutiérrez – 17th and 10th:
Qualifying 10th is a very special feeling that I had missed. I enjoyed every moment of these qualifications. Today’s result was very important because it’s not fun to go into qualifying knowing you can be around the top 10 but not making it. At the beginning, it seemed a little difficult today, but I attacked hard during free practice and communicated well with the team. We decided that, in order to improve, we needed to be more aggressive and be closer to the limit. During free practice, I was able to try to do that, and it’s nice to see that it paid off. So a big thank you to the team. I think tomorrow will be a tough race. Tire degradation will be crucial, and we need to take that into consideration. We generally have good race pace, and that was the case yesterday during free practice 2. I am confident that we can fight for points tomorrow.
Nico Hülkenberg – 8th and 11th:
The qualifying sessions went really well until the last lap of Q2. I had an issue in the first sector on the DRS straight because my DRS did not open. I lost a good two-tenths there, which could have placed us in Q3. We need to analyze that and find out what happened. Since overtaking is difficult on this circuit, it’s going to be a challenging day tomorrow. It seems we have managed to make a step forward in the last races, and I hope we can continue this good momentum tomorrow.
