British GP: Sauber qualifying report

Pedro de la Rosa achieved his best qualifying result of the season so far when he finished ninth in Silverstone. It was the fourth time this year the team had made it into the top ten qualifying with one car, and for the first time it was De la ...

Pedro de la Rosa achieved his best qualifying result of the season so far when he finished ninth in Silverstone. It was the fourth time this year the team had made it into the top ten qualifying with one car, and for the first time it was De la Rosa. Team mate, Kamui Kobayashi, qualified 12th for tomorrow's British Grand Prix.

Pedro de la Rosa:
C29.04 / Ferrari 056
Qualifying: 9th / 1.31.274 min (in Q3) / 3rd Practice: 9th / 1:31.559 min (18 laps)

"I am a very happy man today. It was not only my best qualifying this year, but also the best Saturday because in free practice this morning my car was very good. We learned a lot during Friday's practice sessions and made a lot of changes, aerodynamically as well as mechanically. Now my car is very consistent. Ahead of the weekend we thought we would be quite good here because of the high speed corners, and it has turned out we are. It is good to match expectations. The new parts we took to Valencia worked and the small steps we have for Silverstone are an improvement too."

Kamui Kobayashi:
C29.02 / Ferrari 056
Qualifying: 12th / 1.31.421 min (in Q2) / 3rd Practice: 14th / 1:31.947 min (16 laps)

"The overall performance of the car has definitely improved, but today I found it extremely difficult to put a good lap together. I got it right in one corner, but wrong in the next. Sometimes the grip was there, sometimes it wasn't. I struggled from a lack of consistency. The race is a different story and from 12th on the grid there is certainly a good chance to score points."

Peter Sauber, Team Principal:
"For the first time this season our lap times in qualifying have been competitive and this certainly is pleasing."

James Key, Technical Director:
"We had anticipated this track would suit our car better than some others, but we needed to work a lot after we arrived here. The engineers did an excellent job to get the car's balance right. In the morning session you could see we had made a good step forward, so our target was to get to Q3. It was a brilliant drive from Pedro. He put in a superb lap for his best qualifying result so far this season. Kamui also did very well coming so close to Q3, and he just missed it by a tenth of a second. We will now concentrate on the race tomorrow and hope to score some more points."