“We know Barcelona very well as the teams test here all the time. The field is very tight, and with it being so close we are probably seeing the absolute pace for the first time this season.”
Sam Michael [Williams-Toyota – technical director]:
“That was obviously not as good as what we had expected considering our efforts in practice yesterday. From just outside the top ten, however, we can fight our way into the points with a strong strategy, and that’s what we’ll be aiming to do tomorrow.”
Giorgio Ascanelli [Toro Rosso – technical director]:
“It was worth coming to Spain just to see Alonso’s qualifying lap! As for us, the cars have run reliably so far and in performance terms we did what we could with what we had.”
Mike Gascoyne [Force India F1 – chief technical officer]:
“Qualifying and really the whole of today have been very disappointing for the team. Adrian only got his first run in on a dirty track and then had traffic on his second run before a brake problem on his last outing, which meant he couldn’t set a representative time.
“Giancarlo was slightly more fortunate in that he got in some reasonable runs, but the car hasn’t had the same grip we had yesterday and basically, fuel-corrected, we were about a second slower than we were able to be yesterday. It is very difficult to understand why we have struggled so much with the tyres today, but we have to work on it tonight and look to have a better race tomorrow.”
Graham Taylor [Super Agrui – sporting director]:
“It was actually quite a good Saturday for us. The cars ran reliably and the team went about their business in the normal manner. Anthony found the best balance for his last run in qualifying, whilst Takuma just lost out.
“The
Super Aguri F1 Team once again showed determination by being even closer to our next opponent than in Bahrain. We are all looking forward to racing tomorrow.”
Hirohide Hamashima [Bridgestone – director of motorsport tyre development]:
“Congratulations to
Kimi Raikkonen on his first pole of the year, and congratulations also to
Fernando Alonso for returning to the front row in front of his Spanish supporters. It was a very difficult qualifying session today for drivers, with only a second separating the top 15 cars in both Q1 and Q2.
