Despite narrowly missing out on a place in the final phase of qualifying, Vitaly Petrov’s post-Korea penalty sees him start tomorrow’s Indian Grand Prix from 16th place. However, following his impressive Q1 showing at the Buddh International Circuit, the Lotus Renault GP driver believes a strong result is still up for grabs.
"It was a great feeling being top of the leaderboard at the end of Q1 this afternoon, and it was fully justified, at that point our pace was very good," Russia's Petrov commented after qualifying.
"I was a little bit off my times in Q2, and I wasn’t able to better my Q1 time because I made a couple of minor errors on the last couple of corners. Combine that with the fact that the other teams’ times improved and you have the reason for why I did not make Q3.
"Tomorrow’s the first ever Indian GP so it is very much an open book in terms of what could happen. Even with my five place penalty, I remain optimistic that I can salvage a respectable result for the team."
"That was definitely disappointing," added team-mate Bruno Senna. "The circuit evolved from this morning and the changes made to the car took me, I believe, in the wrong direction given the conditions of the track.
"I struggled a lot with balance and paid the price for that. I have one set of new soft tyres so it’s going to be difficult tomorrow, but I’m hoping that maybe the temperature will be lower and then perhaps we will have a stronger day than today.
"I think the track has evolved more to suit other cars, but maybe we’ll look better tomorrow at the start of the race, particularly on the high fuel load that we will have. The level of tyre degradation looked fine in FP3 so let’s see how that leaves us for the race."
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