Car 1 SEBASTIAN VETTEL, Position: 8th, (3rd Practice – P1, 1:23.168)
“A pretty different session today; it was extremely tight. From Q1 onwards we decided to go on the soft tyres. The first run in Q2 wasn’t good enough, so I had to go again and it was clear then that if we made it to Q3, we wouldn’t have any new soft tyres left. I think we got the maximum at the end there in Q3, we saved some sets of tyres, which we thought going in to qualifying would be crucial, but we didn’t have the pace of the top five cars today. Tyres will be important tomorrow, so let’s see what we can do.”
Car 2 MARK WEBBER, Position: 12th, (3rd Practice – P4, 1:23.578)
“I’m pretty surprised by that; the guys did a good job with the car and were pushing hard all weekend. We were quick, but the track kept getting faster and we got caught out. My first timed lap in Q2 wasn’t fast enough. I was P2 after the first lap and we thought we had done enough, but in the end it wasn’t. I didn’t use two sets of tyres in Q2, which it turns out wasn’t the right thing to do. I was told not to go out again, but the way that the track improved was a surprise to all of us. We were very strong in the first part of Q2 and I was happy with how I drove my lap. It’s the way it goes sometimes.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER: “A difficult session, obviously everyone ended up having to use the soft tyre in Q1. In Q2 we thought we had done enough with Mark, we knew it was going to be tight, but we thought the time was enough and were keen to take a new set of tryes into Q3, but it didn’t work out and we missed the cut with him. We knew we had to run again with Seb and he did just enough to make it into Q3, but he’d used all his sets of soft tyres, at which point it became a game of tactics. Mercedes were in the same position as us with tyres and were the only one we could potentially out qualify. We performed an out and in-lap to make sure we were the first to do that and then started a timed, but Seb was down compared to Rosberg – the the only other scrubbed tyre user – so we aborted the lap and will start in P8. We have four new sets of tyres for Mark and three for Sebastian, which can be extremely valuable in the race.”
(Renault) CYRIL DUMONT: “It was disappointing today. With Mark, we thought he didn’t need to run again in Q2, but unfortunately his time was not enough – we should have gone out again, which prevented him from going to Q3. With Seb, we used all the new soft tyres in Q1 and Q2, so we only had scrubs left for Q3, which was not ideal. We decided to do an out and in-lap, so we can change the tyres for tomorrow.”
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PEOPLE TALK: A Formula One team is all about the people, but away from the racing what makes our team members tick? We found out whose picture people are planning to upload to Mark and Sebastian’s cars for this year’s British Grand Prix, as part of Faces for Charity...
Ed Hewett (Tyre Technician): “Sir Alex Ferguson from Manchester United. He’s a hero of mine and I admire what he’s done.”
Anthony Moore (Gearbox Technician): “My hot girlfriend, Charlene”
Jonathan Wheatley (Team Manager): “My children, they’re triplets so it will be three spots.”
Olaf Janssen (Trackside IT Technician): “A picture of my sister.”
Richard Tomlinson (Garage Technician): “Mine! I’ve always wanted to go round Silverstone…”
Ciaron Pilbeam (Mark’s Race Engineer): “A picture of Sir Steve Redgrave, he’s been very successful over a long period of time and I admire him.”
Dominic Centauro (Garage Technician): “My girlfriend’s nan who passed away recently, so it will be in memory of Nanny March”
Will Courtenay (Strategist): “A picture of myself, because I can!”
Christian Horner (Team Principal): “A picture of Hugo, my Airedale dog”
Mark Simpson (Senior Garage Technician): “A picture of my daughter and son.”
Andrew Damerum (Driver Development): “My time-trial bike, as I’m training for an Iron Man!”
