Pacific GP Saturday qualifying

Heinz-Harald Frentzen
“I tried very hard today, and we put a lot of efforts in finding a better balance for the car. On this track you need to have a good mechanical grip and we managed to improve a bit in this area since this morning, but we kept on struggling with both oversteer and understeer. We knew it would not be easy this weekend but we are in progress : I am getting more familiar with the team, which is necessary to put our experience together, and make the most of the car very soon. Tomorrow’s race is going to be very tough for everyone, and even if scoring points might be a high expectation, I’ll do my best to finish the race in a good position. To finish with, I want to apologise to David Coulthard as I just did not see him coming in my mirrors and I compromised one of his quick laps.”

Luciano Burti
 “This morning, we had a better balance than    
yesterday and we found good directions of work to improve the car       
at midday. I thought qualifying would be better but unfortunately       
we struggled during the whole session. I was unable to make the car     
any better and for some reasons I suffered from both oversteer and      
understeer more than this morning. We tried different things that did   
not really helped, which reflects in the fact I did not improve this    
morning’s laptimes. We must understand what the problem is or where     
we made a mistake because there is no reason to be slower than in       
practice. ”                                                             

Alain Prost
“We have encountered the same difficulties with both cars today and they appeared to increase on lower fuel loads. Unfortunately we have not been able to solve them and to improve our cars’ balance. The fact that Luciano is learning the circuit and that Heinz-Harald is discovering his car obviously did not help, but we were hoping for better grid positions on this track where it is so difficult to overtake.Tomorrow’s conditions will be very hot and it will be a very demanding race. But our reliability level should be an important asset to get the best possible finish here. "

-Prost