Renault’s Nick Heidfeld, Vitaly Petrov happy with attempts in Canadian Grand Prix Q3 – Formula 1
Lotus Renault team have said that they are happy with their top 10 attempts in the qualifying round of the 2011 Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix and that they are hoping for a strong finish on Sunday.
The team drivers, Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov took ninth and tenth respectively in the qualifying round of the Montreal race weekend on the Pirelli supersoft tyres.
Renault had a trouble free run on the wet Montreal track over the Saturday sessions. The drivers really worked hard to secure their pole place for the race day until the closing time of Q3. However, due to having a different level of downforce during the
qualifying round, they could not manage their run to the pole.
After the qualifiers, Renault’s chief mechanic Alan Permane discussed his team drivers’ performance. He said, “Nick and Vitaly are carrying different levels of downforce. When it rains, we're only allowed to change the cooling of the cars. Nick will carry
more downforce than Vitaly tomorrow and, depending on the weather, this could be a very strong position to be in.”
Renault driver Heidfeld was 1.048 seconds off the pace of top-runner, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. The German said that he was quite happy with the working of supersoft tyres. He added that he was not satisfied by running on them during the Friday practice
session, but they did a good job in qualifiers.
Heidfeld mentioned about the Sunday race that he will try his best to show positive improvements in his performance.
His teammate Petrov had a good start to this weekend after his crash in the last Monaco Grand Prix. He was 1.071 seconds off the pace behind Heidfeld in Q3 and put the team on the tenth place.
Petrov discussed the track temperature and said, “The track temperatures were much lower than yesterday and it was very difficult to warm-up the tyres properly throughout qualifying. As a result, I was lacking grip out there and I lost a bit of time during
my quickest lap.”
After the qualifying round in North America, the team is looking forward to a successful race day in Canada on June 12, 2011.
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