Kamui Kobayashi (10th): “I already knew from the morning session that my pace here was good enough for Q3. The team did a really good job – not only in qualifying, but also over the last three weeks. We have changed the direction for the car’s development and as a reward we made it for the second time this season to Q3. The performance of the car is a lot better. We have aero updates and also an engine upgrade for reliability. I won’t set myself targets for tomorrow. I just hope to finish the race and everything else, I believe, will be okay then.”
Pedro de la Rosa (12th): “I’m not happy. In Q2 I was sixth and it obviously was possible to get into Q3. I don’t really understand what went wrong. I had a bit of understeer here and there and out of turn two I was sliding. However, the positive thing is we have made a big step forward since the Chinese Grand Prix, and we are a lot more competitive.”
Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “If you want to move forward on the grid, you have to take two steps, because the competition is not standing still. And that’s exactly what we achieved. A great compliment and thank you to the whole team. We can be happy with what we achieved today.”
James Key, Technical Director: “That was an excellent qualifying result for our team, along with a genuine pace from both drivers, which was very encouraging. We weren’t sure how far we could push forward in qualifying, but I think after Q1 we realised we had a good chance of doing well, and I think in Q2 that proved to be the case. Pedro was just a few tenths of a second shy of Q3, but Kamui put an excellent single lap together to get through. We didn’t have any new tyres for Q3, but we decided nevertheless to give it a go. A great performance from both drivers, and a well deserved result for the team. The updates worked, which was very much a team effort, and we can be proud of the step we made. Now we have to keep it going.”
