By Andrew Cutler
July 21 2012

The rain didn't come soon enough to help Jean-Eric Vergne progress out of Q1, but it probably helped Daniel Ricciardo come up just shy of breaking into Q3. With the Aussie starting in the 11th spot and the Frenchman - thanks to penalties assessed to other drivers - starting 16th, the STR7s are just about evenly spaced at the 1/3 & 2/3 marks on the grid.  

Here are the teams' post qualy comments:

Daniel Ricciardo (11th):

"I am satisfied with that performance. Eleventh is quite good for us, on the edge of Q3. Of course, I’m a little bit disappointed that I missed out on the top ten, but in general this result puts us in a good position for tomorrow and hopefully we can get our nose into the points, even if the race is dry as predicted. As for my quick lap, I actually improved during the run, because even though I was on Intermediates, I seemed to find more grip when there was more water on the track. For that reason, my best lap came right at the end and it was a case of changing lines through some corners from lap to lap as you tried to work out which lines worked best in the conditions. It was a challenging session and I had fun out there this afternoon."

Jean-Eric Vergne (18th: 16th after penalties):

"Only two tenths between me and P13 in Q1 which is very close and in fact I think I lost two tenths in the final corner, although apart from that, I feel my lap was quite good. I am disappointed that the rain arrived just a bit too late for me. We went out immediately on the Option as we expected rain to fall in Q1 itself. I am still hopeful of having a good race tomorrow as we seem a bit more competitive in the dry than we were two weeks ago. With the rain affecting several sessions, we have not done as much running on the dry tyres as usual and seeing how they behave will be an interesting factor tomorrow."

Laurent Mekies, Chief Engineer:

"A very entertaining qualifying and a great show for everyone watching. In these conditions, it’s always going to be very tight and Jean-Eric missed the Q2 window by around 6 hundredths and then we missed the cut into Q3 with Daniel also by 6 hundredths. So it was an afternoon of mixed fortunes, with P11 being a good result for Daniel, while with Jev it’s a shame he just missed out on a chance to run in the wet Q2. Tomorrow is reckoned to be dry for the race and it will be interesting to see the fight in the mid-field, as we have one car at the head of this group and the other at the back of it. This weekend is looking like a carbon-copy of Silverstone with a wet Friday and a dry Saturday morning, followed by a wet qualifying, with the race expected to be dry. We will be trying our very best and points have to be our target, at least with Daniel."