30/07/2011
NEWS STORY
Marussia Virgin Racing drivers Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio enjoyed a productive day of running today, making a clear progression from the third and final Free Practice session to qualifying for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix.
The track temperature was already up to 33°C this morning at the start of the third and final Free Practice session. After both Timo and Jerome wrapping up an early installation lap, they were quickly out on track again to optimise their set-ups for qualifying and tomorrow's race, completing 20 and 16 laps respectively.
At the start of qualifying the track was slightly cooler at 31°C due to the wind that had picked up late morning, Timo and Jerome opted to run two sets of Option tyres and both drivers set their fastest times in the second run. Despite qualifying 21st today, Timo will start tomorrow's race from 20th position as Sebastien Buemi will drop five grid places on his qualifying position as penalty for his collision with Nick Heidfeld in last week's German Grand Prix. Jerome ended the day 24th.
Timo Glock: "It hasn't been an easy weekend so far. Yesterday the car was okay, not perfect, but at least we had a good baseline for today. But then unfortunately the wind picked up this morning and it felt like it just blew our car off the track a little bit. It was very difficult this morning as I had no balance and I really had to work around the set-up. We tried a lot of different combinations and I have to say that my engineers did a very good job. As a team we picked the right set-up in the end and I had a very good qualifying lap. I got the best out of the car and collected a lot of data, and now we have to see why the car is more difficult to drive under these conditions. But I'm happy with my work today."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "Not a bad Saturday at all. This morning was really good and I had a good balance with the car, but this afternoon I struggled a little bit as the track was cooler and the balance changed. I had a bit of understeer which made the car slower over a lap but I feel I was quite close to the car's full potential today. I'm sure I can still improve to make sure I hook everything together over the lap."
John Booth, Team Principal: "Both cars started taking a set-up direction that had seemed positive in FP2. This morning, while Jerome was happy with his balance, Timo was less so, and this may partly be due to the strong wind conditions seen today. Going into qualifying, Jerome kept his FP3 set-up , while Timo made some significant changes to improve his balance from FP3. Both cars got clean laps and Timo was happier with the car in qualifying. We opted to save a set of new Option tyres for the race tomorrow and we hope this decision will ensure both cars have a strong race."
To check out our Hungary qualifying gallery, click here.