HRT boss Colin Kolles said that he was satisfied with what his team had achieved in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix today, despite the fact that both of his drivers will occupy the back row of the Monza grid.
“Considering that we lost so much valuable running time with our problems yesterday, and that we were thus obliged to use most of free practice this morning to investigate another technical problem, I'm satisfied with what we achieved this afternoon,” he said. “In qualifying, both drivers were early out as the green light was on. It can be an interesting race for us and I am looking forward to the race tomorrow and a two car finish”.
Daniel Ricciardo definitely had something to be pleased about – he out-qualified his much more experienced team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi on the track for the first time in his four race career.
“It feels really nice not being on the back of the grid and finishing ahead of Tonio, which is a small target I had set myself, so I'm happy to have achieved that,” said the Australian rookie. “But I don't want to stop there, I want to do it constantly and progress in one way or another.
“It's been a tough weekend having suffered some mechanical problems in yesterday's practice sessions, so we didn't get to run as much as we would have liked today. I was aware that I had to give everything I could in this qualifying session and it's really satisfying to have done a good job. Now we have to wait and see how tomorrow goes but I think we should have a good set-up because we didn't go completely aggressive in qualifying”.
Liuzzi also managed to put a positive spin on the session, blaming the lack of a good slipstream for his lowly grid position:
“If you take everything into account then, overall, it was a good qualifying session because the car was behaving well,” he said. “But the thing about Monza is that slipstream is very important in order to set a good time and I wasn't in the right place at the right place, so I wasn't able to make the most of this. So, at the end of the day, I'm on the back of the grid. But the car is behaving well for the race so I'm positive that tomorrow we can have a good race”.
