Hungarian GP: Qualifying notes - Virgin

31/07/2010

A great day for Virgin Racing as Lucas di Grassi headed the new teams' section of the timesheets in the third free practice session for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix, and Timo Glock took the same honours in Qualifying.

Just like yesterday, the sun shone and the cars ran faultlessly as Timo and Lucas worked on their race set-ups in the final practice session. The team felt they had made significant progress overnight and were hoping to demonstrate this in practice. After completing the planned work on Prime tyres, both drivers went out on Options at the end of the session, with Lucas putting in a great lap to finish 19th and first of the new teams. Timo was just two and a half tenths behind him.

Qualifying proved to be one of the most exciting sessions yet for the team, with Timo snatching 19th position and the new teams' pole on his final lap. Lucas was frustrated to be classified 22nd, after his floor was damaged when he ran wide, but the team goes forward into the race confidently, with a good race set-up and two drivers fired up to deliver a good result.

Timo Glock: "We had a very good two days so far and the whole weekend went in the right direction. The team have done a great job. In general I was quite happy with the car and in qualifying I expected Lotus to be ahead of us because we were still struggling over the bumps. My two qualifying laps were very good and I am really happy with my performance and that of the team. A happy day and I hope we can continue this into the race tomorrow."

Lucas di Grassi: "We had a very strong free practice 3 this morning. The car was feeling very good and we had managed to improve it from yesterday. In qualifying I ran wide in my first flying lap and damaged the floor of my car, making me lose a lot of downforce and a lot of pace through qualifying. I'm very confident that tomorrow the car will be back as strong as it was in free practice 3."

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: "Geeks of the world - rejoice! After the disappointment of not demonstrating Virgin Racing's performance progress in Silverstone and Hockenheim, we have finally managed to have a relatively smooth weekend with the revised VR-01 and have regained our place at the top of the new teams. Lucas's day was looking very strong in FP3, but it seems that he ran wide at the beginning of qualifying which tore a big hole in his floor and damaged his front wing. This will have lost a lot of downforce and compromised his qualifying, but he will be strong in the race, as ever. Timo and his crew made a big step forward with the car overnight and we knew after his first run we were in good shape. His second run was another good step and he did a great job to give the team our best qualifying result since Shanghai. From the outset, Virgin Racing has dared to be different and I want to thank all the team, our partners, sponsors and fans for keeping the faith this year in our unique digital development process. In the meantime, we'll focus on a strong race performance from both cars tomorrow."

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