Karun Chandhok was left feeling upbeat over his continued progress after Saturday’s qualifying session at the Nürburgring, with the former HRT driver standing in for Lotus regular Jarno Trulli this weekend. The Indian says he felt pleased to reach the target set by Team Principal Tony Fernandes prior to the session, getting to within a second of experienced team-mate Heikki Kovalainen on his way to 21st place.
"I’ve got to say I’m pleased with how qualifying went today," said Chandhok. "Tony had said to me that if I could get within a second of Heikki he’d be proud, and I finished about 0.8 off him so that’s a goal achieved.
"One of the challenges today has been finding out how much grip there is on the soft tyres on low fuel and that was always going to be a pretty steep learning curve in quali, but my times have been coming down all weekend so I’m getting there.
"As I’ve been saying, the last couple of days have been about learning the car, the tyres and how to get the best out of the DRS system, so to get as close as I reasonably could expect to my teammate is pretty good progress."
Kovalainen, who is due to start tomorrow afternoon's 60-lap race from 19th, added his feelings: "I’m relatively pleased with the performance today but I think there was still more to come from the car.
"On the second run I was still struggling to get the front tyres working and I maybe pushed a bit more than I should so couldn’t improve on my first run. That run had gone well and I was able to get a decent time in so all in all not too bad."
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Karun Chandhok
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:30.079 | 18 |
| 2. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:30.134 | 15 |
| 3. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:30.216 | 16 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:30.442 | 16 |
| 5. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:30.910 | 19 |
| 6. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:31.263 | 22 |
| 7. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:31.288 | 14 |
| 8. | A. Sutil | Force India | 01:32.010 | 18 |
| 9. | V. Petrov | Lotus Renault | 01:32.187 | 16 |
| 10. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:32.482 | 18 |
| Full results | ||||
| Heikki Kovalainen | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Heikki Kovalainen photos | |||
| Karun Chandhok | |||
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| More Karun Chandhok photos | |||
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