Daniel Ricciardo enjoyed his best qualifying performance today at the Yas Marina circuit to put HRT on level terms with Marussia Virgin
The young Australian, drafted into the HRT team mid-season, qualified 21st and will start the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from 20th after Pastor Maldanado’s engine penalty takes effect. On pace he managed to split the two Virgin drivers, one tenth down on Timo Glock and six-hundredths up on Jérôme d’Ambrosio, despite having struggled to find a working setup during the practice sessions.
“Qualifying was good,” said Ricciardo. “We were a little bit unsure coming into qualifying as free practice didn’t go particularly smoothly. We tried some things with setup and they weren’t doing what we hoped. But my engineer told me to stay positive, he made some changes to the car and it seemed to have helped. The balance was closer to where it needed to be and we put in a pretty good time.”
Ricciardo went on to say that he believes his performance could have been better, had he not suffered with a slow car in front during his best lap. “We lost a bit of time in the second sector,” he confirmed. “The car in front was a couple of seconds up the road. They made a mistake and tried to get out of the way, but it was just bad timing. I think we could have been in front of Glock without that, but you always want a bit more and I’m pretty happy with what we have. This morning if I’d been told I’d be here now, I’d have been pretty pleased.”
Team-mate Tonio Liuzzi qualified a further tenth behind D’Ambrosio but was suffering with a minor mechanical problem. “Tonio had an issue on the front suspension which has to be investigated and that prevented him form pulling out a perfect lap in the end,” said team principal Colin Kolles.
“Nevertheless, the pace that both drivers showed over the different sessions is good and there is almost no difference to our direct rivals. Tomorrow, if we all do our best and stay focused from the beginning to the end, I am confident that we can get a good result for the team that would allow us to finish the season in high spirits."