2009 Brazilian Grand Prix Saturday

Wet weather in Sao Paulo saw a delayed qualifying session for the Brazilian Grand Prix. When conditions improved, Fernando Alonso qualified in 10th and Romain Grosjean in 13th.

FREE PRACTICE 3

Fernando Alonso, R2904, 5 laps, P4, 1:24.125

Romain Grosjean, R2903, 5 laps, P6, 1:24.389

QUALIFYING

Fernando Alonso, R2904, P10, 1:21.422

Fernando: “I think this was the longest qualifying session that I have ever taken part in! The weather conditions made it interesting, but the car didn’t have the pace to qualify higher up the grid today. If we get changeable weather tomorrow, it will impact on the race and if we can react to the conditions at the right times then we can make up some places. We will certainly try our best to do that.”

Romain Grosjean, R2903, P13, 1:22.477

Romain: “The rain was very heavy for the first part of qualifying, but I was very happy with the car. It was the same for all the drivers and I did well in these conditions. Unfortunately in Q2 the track was drying, but we didn’t have time to fit the intermediate tyres and so I did the whole session with the same wet tyres. I also want to say thanks to my mechanics for the super job they did to repair the car after my accident this morning.”

Bob Bell, Team Principal
“It was a difficult qualifying session with the extreme weather conditions that we have had today. We were very lucky to get Fernando into Q2 because the car just wasn’t quick enough today. It’s disappointing that he is not higher than 10th, but he’s in reasonably good shape for the race tomorrow and we will take it from there. The latest forecast suggests that it will be wet in the morning and there is a good chance of rain in the afternoon. So it seems the conditions will be changeable again as we have seen today.”