Malaysian GP: Spyker Saturday qualifying notes

At a hot, humid and frankly sweaty Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia, the Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team has qualified with Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil in 21st and 22nd position respectively. In the first 15-minute segment of the session, both drivers completed two Qualifying runs of three laps on the medium Bridgestone Potenza tyre, recording their best times on the second of their flying laps.

Although filling the back row of the grid was ultimately a disappointing result, the team has made good progress with its new aero package and the medium Bridgestone Potenza tyres throughout the weekend and will continue to build on the developments in the race tomorrow.

The 56-lap Malaysian Grand Prix will start at 15:00hrs local time.

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer:

"Although being at the back of the grid is never a great result, we can see the aero upgrade we brought to the track has made a difference. It's just one step in our development cycle, and we will keep working on it throughout the year."

"This weekend though we've suffered being only team that hasn't tested at the circuit - we've been playing catch up too much and yesterday it was hard to find a clear direction to follow. We looked at everything overnight and Christijan found his car significantly better today and was much happier with the balance, Adrian less so, but with the experience we've now gained from these four sessions our race pace tomorrow can only be better."

Adrian Sutil:

"It's been a difficult day today. We tried some different things to reduce the oversteer, but it seemed to be in the wrong direction and I wasn't happy with the overall balance. I felt I couldn't get the maximum out of the car and I had a few difficult moments. At the moment we are losing about a second to the guy in front over one lap but, as we showed in Australia, I think we will be much closer in the race."

Christijan Albers:

"After the disappointment of yesterday's runs, we changed the whole car overnight and I got my head a little clearer. My team worked flat out just to get the best out of the car, which seems to be suiting me more and more as we go through the practice sessions. I'm obviously not too pleased with the level of the Qualifying though, I made some mistakes, although I did make it up in other corners. From now on we can only go up and get better."

Adrian Sutil
Chassis: F8-VII/03
22nd, 1:38.415 (6 laps)

Christijan Albers
Chassis: F8-VII/01
21st, 1:38.279 (6 laps)

-credit: spyker