Qualifying Quotes - Malaysian Grand Prix.

Michael Schumacher:

Michael Schumacher:

''I tried a low downforce setting on my second run, but the car did not feel good and I went back to a higher downforce set-up for my last run when I set the time. I waited at the beginning as the track was very dusty and there was no point wasting my tyres. This session was not as easy as it might have looked. I only did a few laps, because we did not have any more time after deciding to wait as the track is dirty here. It was better to save the tyres.''

''The car was handling very well. We slowly evolved and improved it over the past two days and we had the optimum balance for qualifying, as well as for the long runs in the race. My first run was not spot on. Then we tried changing the rear wing for the second run, but it was the wrong decision, so we went back to the original settings for my final attempt. Apart from a small mistake in the first sector, it was just right.''

''With the championship decided, this is the ideal situation because there is no pressure. We race because we love it and you just drive to the limit for the fun of it. But we are still racing for the constructors' title and that is very important for us, although I think it would take a miracle for us not to score those three points. Of course, for the race, the important thing will be to finish, to have a good strategy and to adapt the car to have the right balance to suit the tyres. Being four and a half tenths quicker than the others means I am relaxed about tomorrow. I feel sorry for Rubens, because he has been struggling with bad 'flu' all weekend.''

Mika Hakkinen:

''I was at the limit. I'm having a problem with the car and the track. It is very difficult. I was really struggling after the race last year. No air gets into the cockpit. It is very hot in there and with both temperature and humidity being high it will be very draining. It's tough. I put in my best time at the end of the session but unfortunately it wasn't fast enough. The characteristics of Sepang mean that it's easy to lose time entering and exiting corners and if you don't have the right balance that is a problem.''

David Coulthard:

''We get pretty warm in our car, but we just get on with it. I'm disappointed to be so far away from Michael's time. I struggled a little bit but qualifying is only one part of the weekend. At this track the exit of a corner can make all the difference to a lap time. We made some changes to the car for my second and third runs, but it didn't work so we went back to our original set-up, but we still need to work on the balance. However the nature of Sepang means that its quite easy to detect where you are losing time so we should be in good shape for tomorrow.''

Rubens Barrichello:

''After suffering with small health problems over the past few days, I gave it my all at the end of the session to do a great lap and I feel I succeeded. It's a shame both McLaren drivers went quicker than me, both by a very small margin. I am sure our car is very competitive. For tomorrow, we will try to improve the set-up still further and I hope to be feeling even better than today. I think it will be a very close race and it could all come down to the strategy. There is enough room to make up places at the start as the track is wide and there are also quite a few places where you can overtake. I think we will see a good race and I will be giving it my best shot to get a great result and help the team take the constructors' title, which is so important to us.''

Alex Wurz:

''I'm very happy with fifth place. To qualify right behind the McLarens and Ferraris is really pole position for me! I'm very happy that I achieved this in my last qualifying session with the team and I hope this helps to put pay to rumours that have followed me this year. I want to thank the people who work with me and who have supported me for the last three years in the team.''

Jacques Villeneuve:

''I'm disappointed. On the first part of that last run, the car was quick then, part way round the lap, a cylinder must have gone down in the engine or something, and I lost power. It cost me six- or eight-tenths of a second in straight-line speed alone, so I just aborted the lap. Although sixth is a good result, I could have had fifth on my final lap.''

''The outcome of the constructors' championship is very important for the team. it means better garages next season, and more money for the team. more money means a bigger development budget, which should mean a better car. We need a big step forward next year, so we will be aiming for the best possible result tomorrow.''

Jean Todt [Team manager - Ferrari]:

''After winning the drivers' championship in Japan, today's performance shows our real determination to keep fighting to the very last moment of the season. It was a great pole from Michael and a very strong performance from Rubens, who unfortunately saw himself knocked off the front row in the final moments and only by 36/1000ths of a second. Now we are concentrating on the race, as we wish to end this great season for Ferrari on a high note. I am glad the start is an hour later than usual, as it means our fans in Italy and the rest of Europe will not have to get up quite as early as they did a fortnight ago! I was impressed with today's times, which were down to the Bridgestone tyres. We have found more than two seconds compared with 1999. This shows the potential we will have next year.''

Ron Dennis [Team principal - McLaren]:

''We spent most of the untimed sessions this morning optimising our performance for the race and perhaps this was reflected in our qualifying. Hopefully the rewards of our efforts will come tomorrow.''

Eddie Irvine:

''The car was not as good this afternoon as it was this morning so I struggled a bit and was disappointed not to make fifth. My target after this morning was fifth place, so I'm a little frustrated to fall narrowly short. I drove a bad first quick lap, a messy second, and I could have nailed a quicker time on the last run but I just backed off slightly at the last comer because I was conscious of keeping it all together. Ultimately, it cost me fifth place. As for the race, I have a strong claim on points, which would be a great way to end the season. If the weather stays as it is, the cockpit is going to be a warm place to be tomorrow!''

Ralf Schumacher:

''I had expected a position between fifth and eighth and, unluckily, I am at the bottom of my forecast. I could have been fifth but, in my last lap, I made a mistake in turn 14. On this track, we've been struggling from the start to find the right set-up. If I manage a good start on Sunday, I can still run for some points, though.''

Jarno Trulli:

''Ninth is obviously not what we had hoped for. During the morning, I had tried running with scrubbed front tyres and it seemed okay. So, we scrubbed in two sets for qualifying but they didn't work so well and I had a struggle with understeer. I managed to get a good lap in the end but it could have been quicker if we'd had a better tyre strategy. It's going to be difficult starting from ninth on the grid - but you never know what might happen in the race.''

Heinz-Harald Frentzen:

''The team did a very good job on the set-up. After the problems in the morning, I'm quite pleased to have got onto the fifth row. I was unable to complete the necessary work on tyre strategy but to be less than a tenth slower than Jarno is not too bad. Our aim is to finish in the points at the very least and I think anything is possible, particularly over 56 laps in this heat.''

Ricardo Zonta:

''My first run was quite good in sectors one and two, but then I made a mistake braking for the hairpin and lost maybe four-tenths of a second. After that, although I worked very hard with my engineer, and was able to set some quick sector times, I just couldn't get a good flow going. My car was fast, and I would have expected to qualifying a little better. Eleventh isn't that bad a position from which to start and have the chance of getting some points, however. I hope for the team, the mechanics and myself to achieve a good result in my last race. To finish fourth in the world championship would be very nice.''

Johnny Herbert:

''It's strange to me how, after changing the engine for qualifying, the car can completely change. I've gone from a well-balanced car this morning to an understeering car this afternoon. My first runs had similar times to Eddie's, but he managed to pull out a fast one, whereas my car didn't improve. It's annoying as, being my last race, I wanted to put in a good showing. Having said that, I am not giving up. If we can get the balance right, I can do well here as I like the track. What we need to do now is work out the difference between this morning's car and the one I had in qualifying.''

Giancarlo Fisichella:

''There certainly was good potential for the car as Alex was really quick and I'm happy for him today. I'm disappointed because I hoped to be in the top eight. We obviously weren't as well prepared as we should have been, due to my problem this morning. This is a pity because I was quick yesterday.''

Pedro de la Rosa:

''I think it was a good session. The car was good and although I did my fastest lap with four new tyres, it was not the best solution as I think with buff fronts and new rears it would have been better but the old fronts we had were too old. Apart from that the car was good, especially in the first half of the lap but then the front just gave up for the last sector which is why I couldn't improve anymore.''

Jos Verstappen:

''I'm obviously very disappointed with my position because we could have done better. I had a lot of understeer and I ran wide on a corner and damaged the radiator, so had to jump into the T-car. It was set-up for Pedro and although the team changed some things over for me, it wasn't as good as the race car.''

Jenson Button:

''Disappointing qualifying session for me. I hoped I could start the last race of this season with Williams from a much better position. I set my best time on the first run and, after that, I just couldn't get a good lap together. In my last attempt, I found some traffic and also had a problem with Verstappen. I didn't run enough this morning, and we didn't achieve enough mileage to get the car set up correctly. I can only hope that it will end up like Germany, where I started 22nd and finished fourth.''

Mika Salo:

''It's frustrating because I just didn't get a good lap together today. On my first installation lap, I went to quick and got traffic on my flier, my second run wasn't too good and, on my third, I made a little mistake. I waited as long as I dared for my fourth run, but then I hit the queue of cars right at the end. I was too close to Eddie Irvine, and lost downforce all the way around. It was a great shame, because the car was fine for me today.''

Jean Alesi:

''I am ready for tomorrow. Our positions today are clearly not good, but the important thing is the ones we have at the end of the race. We are now working on the car in order to be able to finish the race. I think that if we finish this race, we really will have a chance to secure the result we need. It is this, above all, that I am thinking about.''

Nick Heidfeld:

''I am very disappointed with my position today. This morning, the car did not seem so bad as the result of free practice [13th place] showed. And I felt the car could progress a bit further. We kept on trying to adjust the set-up this afternoon during the qualifying session, but it was not enough and the overall balance of the car was really different to that this morning.''

Pedro Diniz:

''I struggled all day with too much understeer, and that was why I aborted my first run this afternoon so that we could make further adjustments. Unfortunately, we then had a misunderstanding on tyre combination in my middle stint, but my last one was my fastest. It's just a shame that I couldn't improve the turn-in of the car, which is a key requirement here.''

Marc Gene:

''I feel pretty satisfied with today's qualifying, perhaps one of my best performances of the season. My time has improved 1.2secs from this morning's time and I was three seconds quicker than last year, albeit having the same engine. This means that we all made a superb job, from the engineers who worked out a good car set-up to the mechanics who fixed my damaged car this morning after I passed over a kerb. My only regret is to have missed out one place by just one tenth of a second with regard to Diniz's Sauber. However, today, I could have hardly done better than this.''

Gaston Mazzacane:

''My qualifying performance was a complete disaster, however I am trying not to feel too pessimistic for tomorrow's race, where, hopefully, I will be more competitive. Today, I never managed to set a good timed lap over my fourth attempts. All I can do now is to prepare myself as best as I can for tomorrow's race, which is so important to me.''

Pat Symonds [Technical director - Benetton Formula]:

''A great result for Alex, particularly as it is his last race with us. He has applied himself well all weekend and the result shows. I think now we can say we have sufficiently trained him to hand him over to McLaren. Giancarlo had a difficult day, which wasn't helped by a gearbox failure this morning which lost him track time. It meant that he didn't have tyres in the condition we would have liked for qualifying, but nevertheless he put in a lot of effort and made a good recovery on his last run. So he is in a position from which he can assist us in the fight to retain our fourth place in the championship.''

Flavio Briatore [Managing director - Benetton Formula]:

''I'm very happy with Alex's performance today. In the last part of the season, he has done a very good job and, today, he has exceeded expectations and has put us in a very strong position for the race tomorrow. I'm quite disappointed with Giancarlo's qualifying position. We don't understand what happened to his car as it was quick yesterday, so we need to look into this now.''

Gary Anderson [Technical director - Jaguar Racing]:

''Oh for a hundredth of a second or two! It was quite a pressure session really - I thought Eddie drove very well. He responded when it was needed to get the best out of our car, and to be so tantalisingly close to fifth spot, which is the coveted prize if your car's not red or silver, was a great effort. Johnny grappled with understeer from the very start of the session, and could not improve on his time from the morning, which is a little mystifying. Points were our objective before the race, and we're still on target.''

Patrick Head [Technical director - BMW.WilliamsF1]:

''Unfortunately, Jenson rather paid the penalty for the technical problem he had this morning and, in truth, his car wasn't very good this afternoon. He's got quite a difficult race ahead of him. Ralf's at the wrong end of a very close group too - there was always the potential to be at the front end of it, but we didn't make it. It's a very long and tough race tomorrow, and I think we've got to do our homework to make sure that we're in good condition for 56 laps.''

Gerhard Berger [Director - BMW Motorsport]:

''This time, Ralf could not exploit the new tyres in his last two runs. On run one, he lost some time in the first sector and, in his last run, couldn't find the right rhythm. Jenson has suffered from the fact that, in the morning free practice session, he could only run twelve laps due to a hydraulic problem. He is very good in becoming familiar with new tracks, but for finding the right set-up, good mileage is basic.''

Peter Sauber [Team principal - Sauber]:

''On our 'home' ground with Petronas in Sepang, we came with very high aims and are understandably disappointed not to have achieved them. The problem with understeer proved too acute in qualifying, especially with Pedro but, if you add up Mika sector times, he would have been twelfth on the grid, which is much closer to our target. We anticipate a long, hard, race tomorrow but, since the C19 has good performance in race trim, it is still possible to score world championship points.''

Alain Prost [Team principal - Prost GP]:

''We have again suffered visibly from the great heat which has affected the performances of our cars. We are, in any case, disappointed not to have repeated the times we clocked during this morning's free practice sessions.''

Giancarlo Minardi [Team principal - Minardi]:

''We are happy with Marc's improvement over today's qualifying session. His lap times were three seconds faster compared to last season and, honestly, I don't think we could do better. Without pretending to find any justification, I would like to reckon that such an improvement was possible despite [the fact that] we had the same engine as last year. This proves how good has been the job done by the team on this year's car. Of course, we regret we cannot feel satisfied with the current grid positions achieved.''

Read More