Vitaly Petrov, who first drove the Valencia street circuit in GP2 last year, was thrilled to see both Renaults make the top ten shootout in European Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday. Tomorrow, Formula 1’s first ever Russian driver will start from tenth, one place lower than his career-best grid slot.
Saturday marked the second time Petrov has achieved a top ten qualifying place, as the Vyborg man first did so by claiming ninth in Turkey just under a month ago.
“It’s fantastic to get into Q3 because the times were very close today,” he began. “Unfortunately, I made some mistakes on my fastest lap in Q3, so I could maybe have been even higher on the grid.
“In the race anything can happen, so I will try and look after my tyres and make up some positions. There are a lot of new parts on the car this weekend and I have had to adapt my driving style, but I can feel a big improvement with the car.”
Once again, though, Robert Kubica will lead the Enstone team’s change; taking advantage of a Jenson Button mistake, the Pole moved up to sixth on his final Q3 lap.
“It has been a pretty good qualifying and the car was especially strong on the Prime (harder) tyre,” he explained. “On the Options (softer tyre) I had a lot more movement, so the car felt quite different and we didn’t really gain the lap time, but we made a decision that it would be better to start the race on the Options.”
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