Qualifying Notes
- George Russell qualified 18th and Robert Kubica 19th for the Italian Grand Prix
- George posted a 1:21.800 in Q1 to finish P18
- Robert set his best time, a 1:22.356 on his final effort to finish P19
Dave Robson, Senior Race Engineer: The improved weather this morning allowed all drivers to get some valuable experience on a dry and warm track. With most of Friday’s sessions declared wet, all drivers were permitted to keep one set of the Friday tyre allocation for use in FP3. We completed our final preparation for qualifying without issue, with both drivers assessing some small changes made to their respective set-ups overnight.
In qualifying, the interruption to Q1 for the red flag led us to complete an additional run of a single timed lap at the end of the session. Robert was able to get a reasonably clear lap and set his best time of the session. Unfortunately for George, a car ahead ran wide and put some gravel on the track, which cost him enough time that he abandoned the lap. Fortunately, he had enjoyed a strong opening run and was able to set a good laptime early in the session.
Conditions tomorrow could be a little mixed and this may give us an opportunity to benefit from the higher grid positions, which we will inherit after grid penalties are applied tonight.
George Russell: My first lap was very good, but my second run was a bit of a shame. I came out of turn five and one of the cars ahead of me had gone off through the gravel and brought a load of it back on, so I had no grip at the next corner. However, it is positive that we were closer to the rest of the field than expected and I can be happy with qualifying, as I feel that we did quite a good job to maximise our package.
Robert Kubica: We knew it would not be an easy session for us, but that is how it is. The feeling up to qualifying in the car was not too bad, then in qualifying, the balance changed completely which was a bit disappointing to see. We have to see what the weather will do tomorrow and hope for the best.
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