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Romain Grosjean made a dream return by qualifying in third position for tomorrows Australian Grand Prix, whilst Kimi Räikkönen made a mistake on one lap and fell foul of a communication issue at the end of the session which precluded him from qualifying higher than 18th.
Kimi Räikkönen: Today didnt go quite as planned. Theres no issue with the car; I made a mistake and there was a communication issue so the timing wasnt right to get another lap. It cost us a good qualifying position but thats how it goes sometimes. We should have easily been in Q2. Its not the best start but well try to put it right in the race. Theres plenty of speed in the car. The steering was fine. Its not perfect for exactly what I want but it doesnt affect my driving. For sure we can do better than 18th tomorrow so well have to see what happens.
Romain Grosjean: Today is like a dream come true. I only really discovered the Albert Park circuit in the dry this morning and I didnt know what to expect. When I heard my position over the radio I just could not believe it. This third position shows one thing: you must believe in your dreams and hold on to them, whatever happens. Very few people still had faith in me after my first life in F1, but weve all worked very hard to start a new adventure and Im very happy to be able to put a great performance in right from the start of the season. Thank you also to the team for designing such a nice, tidy and quick little car. I will not get carried away because, as the saying goes, you dont score any points on a Saturday. We all know that Melbourne can be a very tricky race. I hope we can keep going like this all season long and in the end it will be a nice story."
Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations: Weve exceeded our own expectations.
Alan, two very different qualifying positions from the drivers
Overall were very happy. Its clear we have a car with good pace here at Albert Park as illustrated by Romains qualifying performance. Things didnt go quite right for Kimi; he was running late to the programme and he made a couple of mistakes, otherwise he would have been comfortably in a strong position.
How much have we learnt from today?
Through the winter we thought we had a good car, but you never know exactly where you stand against the opposition. In Albert Park today we stacked up pretty well so its a great start and weve exceeded our own expectations. After the setback we had missing a test over the winter its great to have all the hard work paid off with a quick car. Every time weve run the E20 weve been fairly comfortable. The base set-up has worked well at three different tracks so far. Lets hope we continue like this for the other 19 tracks we will run at this year.
Looking ahead to the race, it will be two very different strategies for the cars
As always, we need to analyse the data and see whats possible. For Romain its clear that well be on the quickest strategy; for Kimi well have to see if theres anything clever we can do to help him move up the order. Hes clearly qualified out of position, but he has the advantage of three sets of new soft tyres which will help him.
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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