US GP Saturday Arrows notes

OrangeArrows driver Jos Verstappen was able to improve his lap times during his 4 timed lap runs during qualifying, to finish the session in 13th position so set to start the race from row seven on the grid. Pedro de la Rosa unfortunately didn't find qualifying as fruitful however, finishing just 3/10ths of a second behind his team mate to start the race from 18th position. The OrangeArrows team and drivers felt a little disappointed with the unrepresentative qualifying results, but remain confident for a more productive car set-up for the race tomorrow.

Pedro de la Rosa
"I started off very well but I made a mistake on my last timed lap which was my best. In my previous run, I had a Jaguar in front of me which I nearly crashed with which obviously didn't help my lap time so it wasn't very good. The track had more grip in qualifying than in previous practice sessions, but it still wasn't that good. But now we have qualified and we just have to look ahead to the race tomorrow and work towards it".

Jos Verstappen
"On one run I made a mistake but I think there's a limit for us here as we are just sliding in and out of the corners. It was the same as in this morning's practice session where we started in damp conditions, but the car does feel pretty good. We made our choice of tyres for tomorrow during the practice session which I feel happy with, but when the track dries out as it did during qualifying, we lack mechanical grip and we tried out some different grip set-ups during practice to try and resolve it for qualifying, but that didn't work so we changed back to the original set-up. There are some good racing opportunities on this circuit though so we will just do our best tomorrow".

Mike Coughlan , Technical Director
"We're obviously disappointed with the qualifying positions as the car balance was good, but we were lacking grip. For the race the cars will be running lower downforce levels which is more our area so we still have the chance to do well there".