”The first and second sectors of my last timed lap were good, but I came through Turn 15 and there was a lot

of dust and dirt on the track, which got on my tyres. I then went in to the last corner, went out of the groove

and on to the marbles, so lost all the time I’d gained in the first two sectors. What should have been a fairly

easy ‘getting through’ session didn’t prove to be the case. I didn’t expect to be nineteenth on the grid, but

that’s the reality, so now I’ll focus on the race and see what we can get out of that.”

“I didn’t think I’d be seventh, so it’s great. We lost time with a transmission problem yesterday, but the guys

worked really hard last night, did a good job and we’ve got something out of it. We’ve done a lot of testing

over the winter break, but it’s always interesting to actually get into the ring at the first race and see where

we are. There’s still a long way to go tomorrow, we have to see if we can deliver in the race – it should be an

position at his home race. He certainly demonstrated that he’s a cool customer in qualifying. David was

unlucky not to finish his flying lap in Q1, which would have comfortably put him in to Q2. He’s going to have a

more challenging afternoon tomorrow, but he’s got a good track record here and today’s given positive signs

that we’re moving in the right direction.”

The qualifying session went very smoothly for us and the engine performed well. As expected the

competition was extremely close. We are sorry that David didn’t make it past Q1, but we are pleased by the

pace that Mark showed through the different stages. He was very impressive in Q2 particularly. For the first

GP of this new partnership we set the seventh fastest lap time and we are well up the top speed charts too.

It‘s a very promising result and we hope to confirm this good start in tomorrow’s race.