Turkish GP: Bridgestone Saturday qualifying notes

Luckless day for Bridgestone runners in Turkey

This afternoon's Turkish Grand Prix qualifying session left the Bridgestone runners somewhat disappointed with only three of the six drivers setting a time. Rubens Barrichello was eleventh fastest for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team while Jordan's Tiago Monteiro and Minardi's Christijan Albers were 15th and 16th respectively.

World Champion Michael Schumacher was looking for a top place position on the grid until a spin at turn nine on the dusty track put paid to his chances. Minardi's Robert Doornbos, meanwhile, had a fiery experience and Narain Karthikeyan, who had twice changed his engine earlier in the day, completed only an installation lap as he will be penalised in any case.

Bridgestone's runners will be looking for an improved performance tomorrow having run consistent times in the earlier practice sessions.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport:

"The track did gain a lot of dust this afternoon, hindering grip levels. Rubens gave it his best effort but Michael spun so he didn't set a qualifying time. Narain Karthikeyan and Robert Doornbos didn't experience the best of luck today either."

"All in all, this afternoon's qualifying session did not go so well for the Bridgestone runners. Nevertheless, we are expecting the picture to be better tomorrow for our drivers in race trim because this track is tough on tyres and in the practice sessions we have been seeing consistent performances."

Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:

"Today's qualifying session results were not quite what we had hoped for. After this morning's sessions we changed our approach and perhaps we had a bit more fuel than other people."

"However, we still didn't seem to be quite as quick in qualifying as we'd expected. I think Michael may have got into a top six position which, with the fuel load we had and the consistency, would have been a nice place to be."

"But, the car just got away from him at turn nine and that was it. Track temperatures did go up four or five degrees before qualifying and of course there was a lot of dust on the track with people going off all over the place so it wasn't easy but there were no fundamental changes to the track."

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