Japanese GP: Super Aguri qualifying notes

Super Aguri F1 Team drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson endured difficult driving conditions at the Fuji Speedway today. Rolling fog, a usual occurrence for the mountainous area, descended over the circuit this morning together with light rain. As visibility became ever poorer, the morning's Free Practice session was abandoned after only a few minutes of late running. The weather lifted slightly in the afternoon, however, enabling Qualifying to commence on time.

Takuma Sato:

"We were fortunate that we were able to run in Qualifying today with such foggy conditions. During the first few minutes my pace was competitive, but I wasn't happy with the balance and so came back to the pit. Unfortunately I was also called to the weigh bridge and that cost me a bit of time. However, in the second outing, we didn't have any grip at all and it was a real shame because if we could have kept up our pace from the first outing to the end we were looking strong. Obviously we need to understand why we could not improve our time as this is so important before our race start tomorrow."

Anthony Davidson:

"It is disappointing not to get through to Q2. I felt that I did everything right with regard to tyre choice in the session. The car basically did not have the pace in these conditions, which is a shame as I felt as though I drove a clean lap and got the most out of the car. I hope that we have dry conditions tomorrow because we know the car worked well yesterday, so if it is dry we should be able to have a good race."

Graham Taylor, Sporting Director:

"Obviously this was a disappointing Qualifying at our home Grand Prix. Takuma lost some time during the session going to the FIA weigh bridge, but both cars were on the right tyre at the right time. I think we just globally failed to capitalise today."

Takuma Sato
Chassis: SA07-02
Grid Position: 21st
Lap Time: 1:28.792

Anthony Davidson
Chassis: SA07- 03
Grid Position: 19th
Lap Time: 1:27.564

-credit: super aguri