Abu Dhabi: The Qualifying Sessions Seen from the Pits

Red Bull

Mark Webber – Pole position

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « We had a very exciting qualifying session that lasted until the final lap of our two drivers. Mark [Webber] put in a great lap to secure this pole position, 1 tenth ahead of Sebastian [Vettel] to have this fantastic all-Red Bull front row on the grid tomorrow, which seems to be the best we can do to start a GP… It’s going to be a fascinating race tomorrow and as usual, tire behavior will be the critical factor. »

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Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 3rd

Lewis Hamilton – 4th

Toto Wolff, Executive Director of Mercedes AMG: We can be satisfied with the third and fourth place this afternoon. The ifs, buts, and maybes don’t count in motorsport, so whether our positions could have been better or not doesn’t matter. Nico did a solid job today while Lewis was four-tenths faster than his best time until his spin. We will, of course, look into the cause of the technical problem with his car.

We have secured two good starting positions and, now, we need to have clear first laps and seize our opportunities in the race. It will be a tough race against Lotus in terms of strategy and maybe even against Ferrari. We will do everything we can to have a good race and to score a good bunch of points.

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Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 5th [22nd on the grid after disqualification]

Romain Grosjean – 7th [6th on grid]

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « We hope for a good pace in the race tomorrow. Kimi’s performance was good but unfortunately he’s not ahead of the two Mercedes. He could have hoped for a third position. Conversely, Romain suffered a bit today and wasn’t comfortable with the car unlike the rest of the weekend. Having both cars in the top 10 is still a decent result, and we hope to have a solid race tomorrow with the E21. Our goal at the end of the Grand Prix will be to beat the Mercedes to once again secure big points for the Constructors’ Championship. Of course, we will exploit every opportunity we leave for the Red Bull but they seem very strong here once again. We don’t expect big changes in the hierarchy by tomorrow, so the final result seems already determined. The different strategy options we had [editor’s note: doing one stop or two] don’t seem possible here, so we’ll see how things evolve during the race. »

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 6th [5th on the grid]

Esteban Gutiérrez – 17th [16th on the grid]

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: Once again, qualifying showed how competitive our car is. Unfortunately, this is not reflected in the result of the two cars. As always, Nico demonstrated an excellent performance today and used the car’s potential to its maximum. Unfortunately, Q1 did not go as planned for Esteban. It’s a combination of errors that prevented him from going into Q2. A big thank you to the team here on the track. Everyone worked very hard to make this car competitive. Now, we need to focus on the race.

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Ferrari

Felipe Massa – 8th [7th on the grid]

Fernando Alonso – 11th [10th on the grid]

Pat Fry, Technical Director: Since the beginning of the weekend, we have struggled on this circuit, and the qualifying results clearly reflect our position in the hierarchy. We were able to slightly improve our balance on both cars, but we continued to suffer from a lack of grip particularly in the last sector, which makes all the difference in the timesheet. In the first two sectors, we are not far off from the top times, but it’s in the third sector where the gap is the largest. When the temperatures dropped, we managed the tires better, but it wasn’t enough to secure a better position on the grid.

Tomorrow, we will have a very difficult race where it will be essential to avoid traffic in the first stint, so we will try to manage our start well. We will have to control everything perfectly if we want to help our drivers come home with as many points as possible.

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McLaren

Sergio Pérez – 9th [8th on the grid]

Jenson Button – 13th [12th on the grid]

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: « After rather promising performances in free practice 1, 2, and 3, today’s qualifying session was somewhat disappointing for us. Furthermore, even in Q2 this evening, Checo showed good pace, setting the 5th fastest time, so it’s unfortunate that a yellow flag compromised his ability to achieve a similar lap in Q3. As for Jenson, he looked very good throughout the weekend, setting the 6th fastest time in free practice 3, but unfortunately, this evening he wasn’t able to find the same balance and consequently didn’t make it through to Q3. Nonetheless, tomorrow, as we’ve seen many times before, Jenson and Checo will attack hard in the race and will strive to score as many points as possible to consolidate our position in the Constructors’ Championship. »

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Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 10th [9th on the grid]

Jean-Eric Vergne – 14th [13th on the grid]

James Key, Technical Director: Given that none of the drivers were satisfied with the car balance on Friday, the team worked very hard overnight to adjust the car for today with the right wing levels. It seems to have worked since JEV was immediately happy with his car this morning, Daniel a bit less so, which involved a bit more work on his side of the garage before qualifying. After qualifying, feelings are mixed, as we thought we could place both cars in Q3. Unfortunately, Jean-Eric lost quite a bit of time in the second sector on his fast lap in Q1, as he just needed the two-tenths that new tires would provide, and as it was very tight, this mistake cost him a place in the top 10. Daniel did a very good job to get into Q3, but unfortunately could not repeat his best Q1 lap so we ended up a bit lower than expected. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to be back in Q3 and from what we saw yesterday, our pace on the long runs seemed good, so we can expect Daniel to capitalize on this, just like JEV, who has been very competitive all weekend except for tonight.

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Force India

Paul di Resta – 12th [11th on the grid]

Adrian Sutil – 18th [17th on the grid]

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: « It’s encouraging to see Paul in 12th place and just a tenth off the top 10. He was happy with the car’s performance from the start of testing and improved with each stint. We have a good car for the race, with consistent pace over long stints, which we hope will allow us to fight for points. On the other side of the garage, it’s been a complicated weekend for Adrian. He hasn’t been comfortable with the car, and despite all our efforts, we haven’t found a good direction to give him the confidence in the balance. It will be an interesting race tomorrow, and hopefully the strategies chosen tonight will allow us to climb up the order with both our cars. »

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Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 15th [14th on the grid]

Valtteri Bottas – 16th [15th on the grid]

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer: During Free Practice 3, we ran both cars with the aerodynamic configuration tested on Friday, and Valtteri seemed more confident with the car. Pastor suffered from a lack of grip due to higher temperatures, around 50°C, but this improved with cooler temperatures in qualifying. Q1 went well for us with both drivers setting good times, although it was difficult to manage traffic while keeping the tires at the optimal temperature. In Q2, I don’t feel we extracted the car’s potential as both our drivers suffered from traffic, losing several tenths. Overall, we have closed the gap in terms of time compared to the leaders, and with our race pace seeming consistent, we aim to achieve a good result tomorrow.

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Caterham

Giedo Van der Garde – 19th [18th on the grid]

Charles Pic – 21st [19th on the grid]

Caterham has not published statements from the team’s representatives.

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Marussia

Translate: Jules Bianchi – 20th [21st on the grid after penalty]

Max Chilton – 22nd [20th on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: « Today, we encountered more problems than we should have, and obviously, this reduced our performance. Max [Chilton] lost his DRS, and thus the impact on performance is significant. We spotted the problem shortly after qualifying, and we will have it resolved by tomorrow to allow him to prepare well for the race. On Jules [Bianchi]’s side, we had damage during free practice 3 on the gearbox differential, which we had to change for qualifying. The loss of a set of soft tires in FP3 and at the beginning of qualifying the malfunction of his KERS resulted in him having only one lap to set his time, and he managed to achieve good performance.

We are frustrated by this day, but I am confident for tomorrow. In the past few races, we have been able to make a good start, so I am sure that tomorrow we will be able to take positions at the start and have a strong race.

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