As
expected, the Red Bulls were unstoppable on their home
turf, during yesterday's qualifying sessions with the
blue cars locking out the front row of the grid for
today’s British Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel took his
fifth pole of the season, beating his team-mate Mark
Webber by fourteen hundredths of a second. However, it
has been evident since the start of free practice on
Friday morning that Scuderia Ferrari’s F10 has shown
great pace over the revised Silverstone circuit and is
the best of the rest. In this afternoon’s qualifying,
Fernando Alonso was “Mr. Consistency,” knocking in third
fastest times in all three sections of qualifying. It
means he starts on the clean side of the track, behind
the pole man, which is often advantageous going into the
high speed first corner at Copse.
For Felipe Massa, who was right behind his team-mate in
Q1 and Q2, the final outcome was not quite as good as it
should be, as the Brazilian did not manage to string
together a perfect lap in Q3 and will have to settle for
seventh place, securing a start from the clean side of
Row 4. Fernando Alonso has Lewis Hamilton on his outside
in fourth place and the home crowd were disappointed
that his fellow countryman and McLaren team-mate, Jenson
Button had a difficult afternoon and the reigning world
champion will start from the outside of Row 7 in
fourteenth place. The third row will see the Mercedes of
Nico Rosberg who was fifth fastest and alongside him the
Renault of Robert Kubica. The next row is an all
Brazilian affair, as Felipe Massa has Rubens Barrichello
for company in the Williams.
What can be expected from today’s 52 lap race? It does
not look as if the weather will bring any surprises, as
the unusually warm and dry conditions are due to
continue. Strategy should also be fairly straightforward
as both type of Bridgestone tyre are behaving
consistently, so it will all come down to the start,
which is always the best opportunity to pass a car and
how the race pace of the front runners compares on a
heavy fuel load and then over a long run.
Stefano
Domenicali: “Fernando had a great qualifying,
getting all the potential out of the car. A shame for
Felipe, who could have finished higher, although his
chances of having a good race are still intact. Looking
to tomorrow, clearly our aim is to get a podium finish.
We start behind what looks like the untouchable Red
Bulls, but several times this year we have seen our car
prove to be more competitive in the race than in
qualifying. It will be important to get a good start
and, as usual in fact, reliability remains the key
factor. Usually in qualifying, you see all the potential
in terms of performance and for us it is encouraging to
see that on a track whose characteristics definitely do
not favour our car, the extensive work of the past few
weeks is reaping its rewards: now we must transform that
into results.”
Fernando Alonso: “We knew that at this
type of circuit, the Red Bulls would be out of reach,
but we managed to get ahead of the rest of the pack. We
are aware we still need to up our performance level but
it was important to get a positive indication and I
think that, thanks to all the work we have done in the
past weeks on the development of the car, we have
managed to do that. On my final run, I had traffic in
sector three – I think it might have been Michael – but
even with a clear track ahead of me, I definitely would
not have improved my grid position. Up until now, the
weekend has gone well but now we must tackle the part
that counts, the race: we must try and finish on the
podium, because we need to score a lot of points. In
terms of pace, we have proved to be competitive and we
must try and at least put the Red Bulls under some
pressure to ensure they don’t have an easy time of
getting the win. In two days we have seen how easy it is
to lose precious time through small errors and this
circuit is pretty tough on the cars. This morning’s
problem? There was a slight water leak because of a
problem with a pipe, but it was all fixed in the break
before qualifying.”
Felipe Massa: “I am pleased with the
performance of my car which was competitive today.
Unfortunately, I always struggled a lot in terms of
getting grip from the tyres on the first lap on a new
set, as was especially obvious in Q3. I would say that
here we saw the same situation that arose in Melbourne
and to a greater extent in Barcelona. A shame, as I
could have got a better result. I remain very confident
for the race: yesterday, when we had a heavy fuel load
on board, we managed to maintain a good pace and I hope
that tomorrow, it will be even better. I plan to make up
some places compared to my grid position, although I am
aware it will not be easy. Despite the modifications, in
my opinion, the track does not produce many overtaking
opportunities: let’s see what we can do.”
Chris Dyer: “We had a few minor
problems this morning on Fernando’s car, because of a
water loss: it was down to a leaking pipe which was
promptly repaired, but it meant our Spanish driver was
unable to try the soft tyres before qualifying. In any
case, it would not have changed much in terms of his
grid position. Fernando did a great job, getting the
maximum out of his car, while Felipe was unable to do
the same, mainly because of a lack of grip: a shame as
maybe he could have been a few places higher up the
order. We knew the Red Bulls would be strong here, but
we are happy to be ahead of our other rivals. Both
drivers start from the clean side of the track and so we
hope to be able to make up some places at the start and
then make the most of our race pace and maybe improve
still further through strategy and how we carry out the
pit stops. From what we saw yesterday, we should not
have any problems with the tyres, neither the hard nor
the soft.”
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