Italian GP: Qualifying notes - Marussia

08/09/2012

The Marussia F1 Team drivers Timo Glock and Charles Pic continued their steady progression towards tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix at Monza, with a solid performance in this afternoon's qualifying session.

Once again, their respective positions of P21 and P22 were a further illustration of the way the team is closing the gap to their immediate competitors and pulling away from the cars behind. Timo's time of 1:27.039 was 0.1s away from the team ahead, while Charles ended the session within 0.034s of his team-mate.

Timo Glock: "In the morning we struggled a bit more than yesterday. The car balance was a little bit out and not the same as yesterday, but we tried some new stuff for qualifying and I was happy with the changes. In the first run I got a good tow because our downforce package is pretty efficient, but if you get a tow you gain quite a lot of top speed as well. On the second run, straight away I felt that the tyres were completely different in terms of traction and I wasn't able to get a tow. We were quite close to Petrov, so there is good reason to be positive, but the second set of tyres is normally quicker and the track is faster, so on that side it's a little frustrating. We need to analyse the data now and see what the problem is, so we can get the best out of the car tomorrow."

Charles Pic: "I think it was a good qualifying for me. I had some traffic on the first set of tyres, but things went better for me on the second set. We had to make a small change this morning which has perhaps cost us a little bit, but generally I'm happy with today and I think there is more to come tomorrow. We are closer to the cars ahead again, so another step - this time in qualifying, not just the race."

John Booth, Team Principal: "Today has provided another positive step towards tomorrow's race and this has seen us closing in on our objective of taking the fight to our immediate competitors in qualifying as well as in the race; we're closer again. Both drivers did a good job but they didn't have a straightforward time of it. Timo experienced problems with his second set of tyres and with Charles we have had to make a set-up change specifically to help the overall race performance. Nonetheless we're encouraged that things have gone better for us so far and that our usual trend of faring better in the race comes to fruition again tomorrow."

Check out our Qualifying gallery, here.