The Toro Rosso drivers made it into Q2 but were still the slowest team apart from Caterham, Marussia and HRT in Korean qualy...
Toro Rosso:
Daniel Ricciardo: "In Q2, we were only doing two runs of one flying lap each and on my last one, I simply lost drive coming out of Turn 12, feeling as if the car was in neutral and I couldn't find any gears. I could not bring the car back to the pits and had to abort the run at the side of the track. A shame, because Q1 went very well and I was able to post a competitive time. I don't know if I could have eventually got into Q3, but whatever the result, this has been a missed opportunity, although that's part of the game in motor racing. Hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow."
Jean-Eric Vergne: "The performance looked very good and competitive this afternoon, but unfortunately I tried to take the final corner flat on my very last run, but I got it wrong and ruined my lap, nearly losing the car, so I am angry with myself for that. The step up in performance compared to yesterday came partly from improving the car overnight and again since FP3 and partly from myself, in the way I was driving. Of course I will be trying to get a good start tomorrow and hope that I can then work my way into a points scoring position by the end of the race."
Caterham:
Vitaly Petrov: "I'm really happy with the performance today. I've had a couple of problems on the car that has cost me track time this weekend but the team have worked really hard to keep us moving so thanks to them for helping me get the most out of it in all three practice sessions and in quali today. My last lap was really good, probably as quick as we could go around here. We timed it right so traffic wasn't an issue and to finish over a second clear of the cars behind is good for the whole team. We haven't stopped pushing and the aim now is to have a clean start tomorrow and try and carry over this sort of performance into Sunday's race."
Heikki Kovalainen: "I've struggled all weekend to find a setup I'm happy with and that continued today in qualifying. We went for three runs, one on the softs and two one lap runs on the supersofts to help try and find a balance but it just wasn't there today. On my last lap in Q1 I still had understeer in the last four corners - perhaps without that I'd have been able to find a bit more time, but it just wasn't there. Tyre strategy tomorrow will be key. We saw last weekend in Japan that we can fight in the early stages of the race so let's see if we can turn this weekend around in the race."
Marussia:
Charles Pic: "It was a great qualifying for me. On the first run, with the Soft tyre, there was a little bit of traffic and I lost temperature in the tyres. Then for the second run we used the Supersoft tyre. We lost 0.2s in Sector 1 at the braking point, but then the middle sector was very good and overall it was a positive qualifying. We have saved two sets of options for the race and now we will work to see how we can continue to improve tomorrow. I feel very comfortable with the track now and I'm enjoying it a lot - the second sector is really great! Due to the engine change we will start further back, but I think we can recover that quite quickly in the early part of the race so we can focus on keeping with our competitors."
Timo Glock: "It has been quite a difficult weekend for us so far. We've struggled with the car balance all the way up until qualifying. Things looked slightly better this afternoon and the car was certainly easier to drive. My run on the prime Soft tyre was okay but then when we switched to the Supersoft I made a mistake out of turn 10, went a little wide and lost traction. A bit of a shame as I lost a couple of tenths there, but at least the car is slightly better and I think we can have a better race tomorrow."
HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: "We did a more than acceptable qualifying session; especially the second lap which was pretty good. But we had a lot of understeer and as a result were unable to post a perfect lap. The difference to our rivals isn't what we expected, but it seems that at this circuit their car is working better than ours. In any case, I'm satisfied with qualifying and more so with our pace with the soft tyres. Tomorrow, as always, we will go out giving it our all but we must continue working to get closer to our rivals."
Narain Karthikeyan: "We were in quite a good position after the third free practice sessions as I'd adapted very well to the circuit and the car was performing great. But once again I was unlucky this season and we had a mechanical issue on the first lap of qualifying. Now we must analyze the problem to fix it and avoid it from springing up again. Tomorrow we will try to recover those positive vibes."
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