Spanish GP: MF1 Saturday qualifying notes

MF1 Racing made significant improvements over yesterday's practice times en route to qualifying in 18th and 19th positions for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Despite not yet graduating to the later qualifying heats, the team showed continued to show improved pace as the weekend progressed and is now looking forward to a good result in tomorrow's race.

Tiago Monteiro:

"We had a much better day than yesterday. I guess it just means we have to work on our Fridays, really, because there's always either a problem on the technical side, or the set up, or my driving, or something."

"My engineers and I understand each other really well so we always end up sorting it out, but it's frustrating because it costs us so much preparation time. We worked hard last night to make the necessary changes and the car was much, much better today, very balanced and nice to drive, so all that effort paid off."

"In qualifying, I made a small mistake on my first run that cost me four or five tenths, but that's qualifying - you're just pushing as hard as you can. Thankfully, my second run was just a clean, perfect lap."

"I was pushing amazingly hard and the car responded perfectly, so I'd really like to thank my mechanics for that. I was only 1.9s away from the top time in that heat, so the gap is still shrinking and I'm happy about that, especially on a track where we tend to struggle."

Christijan Albers:

"Not the greatest day for us, to be honest. We struggled a lot and we have to look through the data to see what's going on. From a performance point of view, we're doing really well in the middle sector, which is the toughest one because of all the corners, so that's encouraging."

"But we're losing a lot of time in the first and second sectors, so that's where we have a lot of work to do. We have to find out why we're slower than Tiago and come up with a solution for that."

"On my first qualifying run, I nearly had a massive shunt because I came around a blind, uphill corner almost flat out in fifth gear, and all of a sudden I had Sato moving really slowly in front of me. I can't understand what he was doing, because he was on his 'in' lap and should have been more aware of what was going on."

"My emotions got the better of me at that moment, and maybe I reacted in a way that wasn't so nice, but that still doesn't excuse his actions. Everyone knows this is not a place where you lift (off the throttle)."

Colin Kolles, Managing Director:

"The team worked very hard to improve from yesterday and the drivers did a good job to get the most out of the package, so in that sense I'm reasonably happy."

"On the other hand, I also think we would be in the later qualifying stages by now if everyone was using the same engine formula, and by this, of course, I'm referring to the V10s."

"We lost a lot of time to them in the first sector because of their straight-line speed, so it's obvious the equivalency formula is not working. I hope this issue is resolved before Monaco."

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer:

"On the surface, it seems like another normal qualifying for us, but in truth we are moving closer to our target of moving into the later sessions. We think we have a strong race package, so we're fairly optimistic about our chances tomorrow."

Tiago Monteiro
Chassis: M16-03 Qualifying Classification: 18th
1:17.702 (+1.886 from fastest lap of first heat), 6 laps completed

Christijan Albers
Chassis: M16-04
Qualifying Classification: 19th
1:18.024 (+2.208 from fastest lap of first heat), 7 laps completed

-mf1-