By Andrew Cutler
July 7 2012

But for the Yellow Flag brought out in the closing minute of Q2 by Roman Grosjean's spin, Daniel Ricciardo is confident that he would have made it into the Q3 session. For his part, Jean-Eric Vergne feels (and the team agrees) that last-minute indecisiveness over tire option choices cost him a chance at another 'flying lap' to try and improve his starting position.

As it stands, Ricciardo will start in the 14th spot for tomorrow's British GP: Vergne qualified in 16th but, owing to a ten position penalty asessed after the European GP, will start last on the grid. Both men feel that the STR7 is well suited to the wet racing conditions which look to a certainty for the race.

Here are the team's post-qualifying comments:

Daniel Ricciardo (14th):

"It was a tricky session and a long one, with similar conditions to last year, when I made my F1 debut at this race.  Unfortunately, after the restart I didn't manage to get through to the top ten, where we had been before the red flag. I am sure I was affected by the yellow flag for Grosjean's spin on the last lap, because without it I would have have been into Q3. Our pace is better than our position would have you believe, therefore, as I said on Friday, if we have a wet race, which seems likely, I think we can do well tomorrow, when I will be racing hard. The car seems to work well in the wet, but starting in the mid field there will be a lot of spray to contend with, so there are pros and cons to racing in the rain."

Jean-Eric Vergne (qualified 16th: starting last):

"It could have been a really good qualifying and it had been going well up until the red flag. I was fourth at the time, but I knew it would restart with better track conditions and I would have to do it all over again. The red flag was definitely the right decision as there was too much water for the tyres to clear. However, at the restart, we considered running Intermediates before making a quick decision to switch to the Extreme and I think maybe I could have been higher up the order except that I therefore missed the opportunity to do a second flying lap as the chequered flag came out. I am disappointed, as I feel I could have got into Q3 today. I hope we have a wet race tomorrow, because although I will be starting from the back, everything is possible in these conditions and I hope I can make the most of the fact our car is working well in the wet, to have a good race."

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer):

"Our performance was looking quite good up until the red flag in Q2, as both our cars were in the top ten at that point. At the restart, it was a tight call between Intermediates and Extremes and in the end, we elected to wait a short while after the restart to see what the other cars looked like and that decided us to go with the Extremes. Unfortunately, Jean-Eric missed the opportunity to start a second timed lap in this run by just a few seconds, which made his life difficult. Our performance has definitely looked better in the wet, therefore a wet race would suit us tomorrow. "