After making a last dash to Abu Dhabi to compete, the Caterham F1 Team qualified nineteenth with Kamui Kobayashi and twentieth with debutant Will Stevens on Saturday, although due to penalties to others, they will start sixteenth and seventeenth respectively.
Kobayashi feels he’s had a good weekend up to now, and will be looking to continue his positive form into the race on Sunday. He felt he qualified where the car deserves to be, but insists the team should be satisfied with their performance.
“We’ve had a very decent weekend up until now – it’s been a positive day today and the car feels better than yesterday,” said Kobayashi. “I lost a bit of time in the last sector, but nothing would’ve changed result wise, so we can be satisfied with our performance today.
“I’m really looking forward to tomorrow – we will fight like we always do and I hope we can end the season with a good result to thank all the fans who are constantly supporting the team and that got us here to Abu Dhabi.”
Stevens has been getting closer and closer to his team-mate throughout the sessions, and felt he would have been roughly around the same time as Kobayashi in qualifying had he not made a mistake on his fastest lap.
“I was looking very strong on my last qualifying lap – I matched Kamui through the first two sectors but I made a mistake going into Turn 17; I was actually a second quicker than my previous lap at that point,” revealed Stevens. “I’m pleased because I know that if I hadn’t made that mistake I would’ve been matching my team-mate, but obviously I’m disappointed because I could’ve done better. But overall it’s been a positive day.
“This morning in FP3 we started to push and I had some good performance runs. I was pretty happy with my Prime tyre run but my Option run was quite messy and I didn’t get the most out of the tyres. I feel comfortable and I just need to keep a cool head and enjoy my first ever Formula 1 race tomorrow. We will all do our best as we want to show all the fans out there how much their support means to us.”
