Hockenheim qualifying notes

Qualifying session

1 - Klaus Ludwig "I'm really happy with my time. This was even faster than I had expected it would be possible. And this although I made a little mistake which cost me some 100ths of a second."

15 - Dario Franchitti "The guys have done a fantastic job to repair the car so fast. I'm really happy now. Although - to be honest - I'd prefered to have been only 15th. So I would have had the possibility to go out first in Top Qualifying."

8 - Nicola Larini "I'm really satisfied, because this was a lap without any problems. And this is satisfying enough, especially as Alfa Romeo hasn't been too happy on the Hockenheimring in the past."

4 - Jan Magnussen "Okay, there's a big gap between me and the first three. But I didn't go out to be fastest, but only to be fast enough for a top 15 placement."

10 - Yannick Dalmas "If you look at the times of the first three, I wasn't so fast. But nevertheless I'm very satisfied. We worked very hard to find a fitting set-up and got rewarded by this fifth position. And I wasn't quite at the limit and could have been a little bit faster."

3 - J”rg van Ommen "How can I be satisfied," asked the German with a big smile, "I always want to have more bhp and more grip. But the lap was quite alright and I wasn't at the limit."

14 - Bernd Schneider "I really did my best but something went wrong so I couldn't go faster. Now we will have a look at the telemetry to find the problem, which slowed me down."

9 - Manuel Reuter "As I hadn't been out on this tyres before, we had to gamble with the set-up and there was only one thing I was interested in: to achieve a top 15 placement."

20 - JJ Lehto "I'm very pleased, that it was so easy to enter the top 15. My lap wasn't perfect, but I didn't expect it to be. One lap qualifying is always a problem for me, as I usually need two or three laps to find my rhythm. You know, I'm a racer but not a qualifyer."

6 - Kurt Thiim "This lap time wasn't the last you've heard of me. Improvement is possible, but I didn't want to ruin my tyres, as I need them for tomorrow's Top Qualifying."

19 - Michael Bartels "This was a very close encounter. But it was more than important to reach the top 15. The car didn't jump as much as in the morning sessions."

26 - Giancarlo Fisichella "There was no chance in finding a good set-up in the morning, as I was stopped by gearbox problems. This caused my relatively slow qualifying lap, which fortunately was fast enough to enter the top 15. Now we've got time to find a better set-up tomorrow morning."

11 - Christian Danner "I'm falling asleep with this car on the straight. And I wouldn't be unhappy at all, if it wakes up again in time for the Saturday morning session."