Imola: Midland Qualify 19th and 20th

By Phil Giles
April 23 2006

Minor technical glitches disrupted the teams qualifying session for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. The team qualified Tiago in 19th and Christijan in 20th, disappointing after his earlier practice runs.

The teams work over the last few weeks appears to have been borne out by the times set in yesterdays and this mornings free practices, however there are a few little problems that still need to be overcome.  The team will be able to spend the rest of the day and early tomorrow sorting out any issues in time for the race.

"It hasn't been an easy weekend so far, that's for sure." commented Tiago.  "But with the exception of this qualifying session, we had been improving every time we were out on track, closing the gap to the others and trying to improve the car. It's somewhat disappointing, because we solved the tyre issues we had yesterday and we were looking forward to a breakthrough today. Still, I remain confident that if we can make a good start tomorrow, we should have a strong race. The race team has done a great job all weekend and I hope Christijan and I can deliver the results they deserve."

Christijan said: "I'm extremely disappointed with our qualifying result today, because I know we could have been so much quicker. It's always frustrating to encounter technical problems, but unfortunately, that's the way it goes sometimes. Now, we have to remain focused on what's important, and that's the race tomorrow. Hopefully, we can fix whatever the problem is and perform at the level we're capable of."

Colin Kolles commented: "Unfortunately, Christijan Albers had some technical issues with the car, because he showed how quick he was all weekend. We don't know at the moment what caused this problem, but we hope to solve it before tomorrow's race."

Dominic Harlow: "Qualifying didn't go as well as we'd hoped today. We might have had a small problem with Christijan's car, which we're looking into. In the morning and up until the qualifying session, we were making good progress and we feel that we have closed the gap to our closest competitors. I'm looking forward to the race, because I think we'll be stronger in race conditions."

Tomorrow's big test is the new launch system that the team have been working with.  We understand that it's quite a complicated procedure but both drivers are happy with the system and hope that it keeps Super Aguri firmly behind them.