Qualifying session at Nürburgring didn't bring the results expected.

22/07/11 The Qualifying session at Nürburgring didn't bring the expected results.

The first day of the GP2 at the Nürburgring began with the free practice session, where the Racing Engineering drivers quickly showed their speed....

The first day of the GP2 at the Nürburgring began with the free practice session, where the Racing Engineering drivers quickly showed their speed. Both Clos and Vietoris where, from the first, amongst the fastest, with almost all of the cars on the track from the opening minutes of the session as the cloudy skies meant the possibility of rain although, fortunately, the session remained dry.

Lap times hardly improved in the second half of the session, with the teams focusing on their car’s setup. The only one from the top drivers to improve his time was Clos, taking the second fastest lap while Vietoris finished the session in eleventh position, with the time set in the first minutes.

Qualifying was also run on a totally dry track. On his opening attempt, Clos was one of the first drivers going under 1.41, which put him ninth, with Vietoris just a tenth behind his team mate in eleventh position, both being slightly hampered by the on-track traffic, especially in sector two.

The two Racing Engineering drivers where among the first to get back to the track for the second half of the session, both looking for an improvement to their previous lap times. But the behaviour of the cars wasn’t what was expected with the second set of tyres, so Dani and Chris has to keep the times scored in the first minutes, which left them 12th and 14th on the grid.

Despite the starting positions for tomorrow’s Feature Race not being as good as expected, the lap times scored by the Racing Engineering weren’t that far from the fastest so they will have chances to gain positions and to get a good result and better positions on the grid for Sunday’s Sprint Race.

Team Quotes:

Dani Clos: “It was a complicated qualifying session. Honestly, I am not satisfied because I was slowed down by other cars on my fast lap and I had to overtake them. After that, my tyres' performance was not the same anymore. With my second set of tyres I didn't have the opportunity to improve my lap time. It was complicated. We start tomorrow's race from a difficult position, but tomorrow is another day.”

Christian Vietoris: “My lap was OK. Maybe there would have been another tenth or two possible, but today's qualifying didn't go to plan. We tried a new solution on the car and it didn't work out the way we hoped. I think the race at the Nürburgring will be difficult as it's very hard on the tyres. However, we will now put all our efforts into preparing for tomorrow's race as well as possible. It’s another race and maybe one with different conditions.”

Stefano Alessi, technical director, Racing Engineering: “We missed an opportunity on the first set of tyres with traffic in sector 2. The second set of tyres didn't give the same feeling as the first set. The car is behaving well from what we see. But we will have to wait and see what tomorrow's race brings as everything suffers here on this track with hard braking areas and elevation changes. This means the balance changes a lot here. We are disappointed with these qualifying results, but continue to work hard in order to prepare tomorrow's race.”