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A1
Team Monaco will start on the 8th row of the grid for the Sprint Race
and in 11th position for the start of the Feature race tomorrow after
a Saturday of mixed fortunes at the Sepang International Circuit in
Malaysia.
The teams got the chance to play a PowerBoost ‘joker’
in qualifying* today with a new rule ‘aimed at adding a new strategic element to
Saturdays’. The functionality of the new A1GP Powered by Ferrari car allows for
the PowerBoost button to be available for an entire lap of Qualifying and teams
are allowed to use it for one of their four flying laps. The PowerBoost button
gives an extra 60bhp on application, so teams were able to decide in which
segment to play their joker, making the decision to deploy it for the Sprint or
Feature race qualifying instrumental in determining how their race day could
develop.
Following an encouraging Friday, Team Monaco
struggled with car balance during this morning’s final practice session when
Clivio Piccione set the sixteenth fastest lap time (1:50.699). The team made a
good start, running in fourth place for the first part of the session, before
moving down the time sheets as the session continued.
The Monegasque squad fared no better at the start of
the afternoon when the team fell victim to an early red flag situation in SQ1
(Sprint race Qualifying Session 1). This limited running to less than two
minutes and in a surge to record a lap time all 20 teams went out on track at
once. Clivio was caught in the back of the pack and was one of five teams who
ran out of time when they crossed the finish line. Team Monaco therefore had to
make the most of SQ2 after the short break and Clivio pushed the car to improve
on his morning’s practice time with a 1:50.171. He will start the Sprint race on
the 8th row of the grid in 16th position
tomorrow.
Clivio set an early competitive hot lap of 1:48.940
to sit in 2nd position at the start of FQ3, the first qualifying
session for tomorrow’s Feature race. At the chequered flag Clivio’s time was one
of only five set in the 1:48’s and was impressive enough to hold the team in
4th place at the end of the session. After the final five minute
respite the last qualifying segment got underway and Clivio left the Monaco
garage with four minutes of the session remaining. He was able to set a 1:48.242
which elevated the team to 2nd on the time sheets, but as the final
few seconds of the session counted down, a sprint for the line by the
established teams meant that Monaco’s time just slipped out of the top 10 to
finish the segment in 11th position.
Clivio Piccione, Driver and Seat Holder: “We went out straight away this morning for practice and set a good lap
time putting us in P4. The car was understeery and the track was pretty green,
so we did few changes to cure the understeer, but the track came back quicker
than we anticipated. We were not happy with our result, but
we understood what we needed to do for Qualifying. In the first qualifying
session we missed the chequered flag by one second. We ran the same tyres in SQ2
and set a good lap, but as many of the other teams were on new tyres, we ended
up pretty far back. We started FQ3 on a new set of tyres and made a few changes
to maximise grip and it actually went quite well. We set a good lap in FQ4 which
put us up into P2 and we used the boost, so we were confident for at least a
position on the first three rows. But on my final quick lap I lost the rear at
turn 1 and lost time. We had a quick sector 2, but at turn 13 I lost a bit more
time under braking. Everyone else’s times improved and we missed out on the
position we expected, so overall it was quite frustrating and we know we have
the potential to do better.”
Graham Taylor, Team Principal: “After four minutes of the first segment of qualifying there was a red
flag deployed because of Korea, but the clock does not stop, so we were aware
that time and space on track would get very tight. Our garage is at the top of
the pitlane, so we have a long way to go. The cars in front
of us were slow, so we missed the chequered flag by one second. During the
second run we were only good enough to take 16th place which is a
shame because we needed information from two full runs following a frustrating
morning. For FQ3 Clivio put together a very good lap, finding the balance of the
car which was encouraging as we still had the PowerBoost to use. Our final run
did not live up to own expectations and leaves us with a lot to do
tomorrow.”
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