ETCC: Valencia: Qualifying quotes

Augusto FARFUS -- AutoDelta Squadra Corse, pole position
"I'm very happy with my first pole position in the ETCC. This will help me to forget the disappointment for the penalty concerning the Monza races. Today we have been strong from the very beginning. I've managed to post a very good lap time, and I'm really happy! However, I expect the races to be very tough. We will have to push from the beginning to the end, and I hope that it will pay off, and we can finish on the podium. We look strong now, but you never know how things will go in the races."

Gabriele TARQUINI -- AutoDelta Squadra Corse, 2nd
"All three Alfa cars have been incredibly strong in this qualifying session, and Augusto (Farfus) was really impressive. He keeps on saying is learning, but it seems as he has already learnt everything. I'm very happy with my performance. It has been difficult to improve last year's car, which was quite competitive, however this year's version is even better! There is a big gap between the Alfas and the rest of the world, but it will probably be a lot closer in race conditions tomorrow. The new tyres are just perfect for the one or two qualifying laps. Having said that, though, the car is very good for endurance as well. So I'm quite optimistic for the race."

Fabrizio GIOVANARDI -- AutoDelta Squadra Corse, 3rd
"I was one second slower than my team-mates, and I can't really explain what the problem was. I will have to wait and see until I have had a look at the telemetry. The third position on the grid put me in a difficult position, as Andy Priaulx in the BMW will start alongside me, and we know that the BMWs are better starters that the Alfas. But I'm not too worried, I think we can fight him off."

Andy PRIAULX -- BMW Team Great Britain, 4th
"To be fourth-fastest is more than I expected. I thought anywhere between 6th and 12th would be my area rather than this. Sam Waes, my engineer, made some really good changes in the last few minutes of the session, and we used another set of tyres which helped me to take fourth position from Diefenbacher. I'm very pleased, and for me, that's worth as much as a pole position. This is obviously a track that suits the Alfa cars really well; it's a circuit with a lot of acceleration and quite a few corners. If I can be near them, that would be good. But I've got some ballast, which is not going to help. If I can come away with a few points tomorrow and have two good races, I'd be very happy."

Frank DIEFENBACHER -- SEAT Sport, 5th
"I would have been very happy with the fourth place, which I kept almost till the end of the session until Priaulx went a little bit faster than me. But we are happy with the position, because the Alfas are in another world with their lap times. We will be fighting with the BMWs in the race, but if the Alfas keep the same speed as in qualifying, they will just race their own race. I hope for nice, hot whether, because in very warm conditions our car is very good. Let's hope in the Spanish sun."

Luca RANGONI -- Oregon Team, 6th
"We have worked very well today, from the practice sessions onwards. Our car is very competitive here, and I managed to put some tough nuts with a lot of experience behind me. Tomorrow it will be important to save the tyres and the brakes. I want to do two sensible races, with no mistakes. The Alfa cars have a huge potential here, the new one and our Gta, in this conditions I think we have a great opportunity to obtain some good results."

Dirk MÜLLER -- BMW Team Deutschland, 7th
"Honestly, I expected more from qualifying. The gap between Alfa and us is massive, and I don't know why they are so quick. We have tested here in December, then at the beginning of this year, and we were both doing the same lap times. And now they are miles ahead. For me it's quite difficult with the 35-kilo weight handicap, but I found a good set-up and my goal for tomorrow is just to collect as much points as I can."

Antonio GARCÍA -- BMW Team Italy-Spain, 8th
"Obviously I was expecting much more on my home racetrack. We are very disappointed, because we did not understand exactly what happened. We have got a lot of problems, from the free practice sessions, and this did not help us. Our reference time is Priaulx, in the best of the BMWs; he managed to be 6 tenths quicker than me, which means that we have done something wrong."

Jordi GENE -- SEAT Sport, 10th
"I didn't do as well as I thought I would; I expected to be a lot quicker. The car changed a lot with the new tyres and I struggled. To be honest, the car felt a lot better on used tyres during the two practice sessions, so maybe the races will be better for us. I hope so."

Jorg MÜLLER -- BMW Team Deutschland, 12th
"I have had a quite bad qualifying. I just did one flying lap with my first set of tyres, because there were yellow flags during my first flying lap. Then the same thing happened again with my second set, so I just couldn't use my tyres properly. Otherwise I would have been three to five tenths faster, but that's my limit with the 40-kilo handicap."

Alessandro BALZAN -- JAS Motorsport, 16th
"We begin now to find a good feeling with the car. Our set-up choice was good, but I did not make the most out of the new tyres because of traffic problems. I could have done a lot better, which makes me confident for the races."

Thomas KLENKE -- RS-Line Rotpukt Sport, 17th
"I think 17th is not so bad, but I'm a bit disappointed with my performance. This has not been my best qualifying. In every lap I tried to go fast, I made a mistake. The car is improving in every detail, though. We still have to learn a lot about tyres, aerodynamics and everything, but it's going better and better. Since the last time I drove in the ETCC two years ago, the Focus has improved so much and now is much easier to drive."

Jan MAGNUSSEN -- Peugeot Sport Engineering, 19th
"I surely expected more than a 19th position from the qualifying. In the first two practices things looked much better for us, but in qualifying something went wrong. We have to find out what the problem was, then we will be back tomorrow and we will go strong. After the warm-up we will see if the direction we take in our work tonight is the right one. We will look through everything, find every little thing with the car and fix it. Then we will put everything together for tomorrow and see where we are"

Simon HARRISON -- GR Asia, 18th
"I'm certainly very pleased to be the fastest Honda driver. And I'm certainly very pleased with the time we have done. However there's a lot to do, especially when you look at the time Tom Coronel had set, which was 1.7 seconds faster than mine, there's a lot to do to be at the front of the Independents, which is where we need to be. But this is the first step, and we are happy. As for the races, first I would like to get through the chicane, which is not an easy job, as we saw from the races which were run today. Then I will try to be reliable and get to the end."

Sebastian GRUNERT -- RS-Line Rotpunkt Sport, 22nd
"We knew that here in Monza it was going to be very very tough for us. The team worked very hard to finish the cars in time, and Roland's (Asch) was finished here yesterday. We did not have any major technical problems, just a lot of minor things, which are quite normal on brand new cars. Roland had a clutch problem this morning, and I had brake problems. Both our cars had too much understeer. We managed to gain just a bit at a time, but the others are improving more and faster than we do. Anyway, we are here to gain experience, and this what we want to do tomorrow."

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