San Marino GP: MF1 Saturday qualifying notes

MF1 Racing's M16s experienced disappointing technical issues that prevented both Tiago Monteiro and Christijan Albers from improving on their practice times from earlier in the morning.

The team will focus on resolving these issues and hope to give its racers the best possible opportunity to improve upon their 19th and 20th starting positions.

Tiago Monteiro:

"It hasn't been an easy weekend so far, that's for sure. But with the exception of this qualifying session, we had been improving every time we were out on track, closing the gap to the others and trying to improve the car. It's somewhat disappointing, because we solved the tyre issues we had yesterday and we were looking forward to a breakthrough today."

"Still, I remain confident that if we can make a good start tomorrow, we should have a strong race. The race team has done a great job all weekend and I hope Christijan and I can deliver the results they deserve."

Christijan Albers:

"I'm extremely disappointed with our qualifying result today, because I know we could have been so much quicker. It's always frustrating to encounter technical problems, but unfortunately, that's the way it goes sometimes."

"Now, we have to remain focused on what's important, and that's the race tomorrow. Hopefully, we can fix whatever the problem is and perform at the level we're capable of."

Colin Kolles, Managing Director:

"Unfortunately, Christijan Albers had some technical issues with the car, because he showed how quick he was all weekend. We don't know at the moment what caused this problem, but we hope to solve it before tomorrow's race."

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer:

"Qualifying didn't go as well as we'd hoped today. We might have had a small problem with Christijan's car, which we're looking into. In the morning and up until the qualifying session, we were making good progress and we feel that we have closed the gap to our closest competitors. I'm looking forward to the race, because I think we'll be stronger in race conditions."

Tiago Monteiro
Chassis: M16-03
Best Time, Morning Practice: 1:26.476 (18th)
Qualifying Time / Classification: 1:26.820 (19th)

Christijan Albers
Chassis: M16-02
Best Time, Morning Practice: 1:25.803 (16th)
Qualifying Time / Classification: 1:27.088 (20th)

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