Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “We head to China after taking a good step forward in Malaysia, but we are all focused on the reality of where we are now and know there we have a lot of work ahead of us. The main aim for me now is to improve our reliability and make sure both cars cross the finish line on Sunday. We have shown there is pace in the car, and there will be more to come when we start putting the updates on in Europe, but now we have to make sure we give the drivers the time they need on track to optimise the setup and the only way to do that is to avoid reliability issues.”
Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “In China we have Luiz Razia and Davide Valsecchi driving for us in FP1 and I think Shanghai will be another interesting weekend for us, especially as we have had two races so far in such different conditions. In Melbourne the tyres lasted longer than I think everyone expected and then in Malaysia there was much higher drop-off and multiple stops as a result. In China we will all be in slightly unknown territory with the tyres and the cooler temperatures will mean the most important goal for us will be to maximise our track time on Friday and Saturday morning, getting the cars set up properly for qualifying and bridging the gap to make it into Q2.”
Heikki Kovalainen: “I enjoyed my time in Malaysia but now it’s about building on the performance there and looking ahead to China. It’ll be cooler than in Malaysia for sure, but for me the heat isn’t a problem anywhere we go, and obviously that’s the same for the cold! However, pace wise, I think that if we can repeat our performance in the race in Malaysia then it means we can repeat it anywhere in the world. I do enjoy driving in China – it’s similar to Malaysia in that it’s a modern circuit, fairly small and it has some pretty heavy braking zones. The DRS will come into play on the main straight and I think it’ll be another good race.”
Jarno Trulli: “China is one of those tracks where I have never been too lucky, so it’s always a bit of a challenge. Despite that, we go there in a good position after getting pretty much the best out of the car in Malaysia. We learnt a lot from Saturday and Sunday there, and that will be very useful for us in Shanghai where obviously it will be a different challenge, but hopefully we can have a better shot at qualifying and let’s see what happens on Sunday.”
