Unfulfilled Potential for Fisichella at Home Track

Felipe Massa
By SAUBER PETRONAS (24/4/2004)
April 25 2004

Team SAUBER PETRONAS drivers Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella will start tomorrow´s San Marino Grand Prix from 12th and 19th places respectively after this afternoon´s qualifying sessions.

Giancarlo Fisichella (Driver):

I´m really disappointed. We made progress with the car today and it was better balanced than yesterday and slightly better on the first lap on new tyres. In pre-qualifying I thought I did a very good lap, but on my in lap I felt a problem with third gear. Unfortunately there wasn´t enough time to change it before qualifying, so here I am at the back of the grid. It´s my home race, and I knew it will be very tough starting that far back…

Felipe Massa (Driver):

I was happier with the car today. I made a mistake in pre-qualifying, otherwise my lap would have been better, but everything went well for me in qualifying and given the strategy we have chosen I am satisfied with my performance this afternoon. Our car will be more competitive in the race.

Peter Sauber (Team Principal):

We are pleased that Felipe got everything out of the car in the configuration in which we chose to run it today. Unfortunately, Giancarlo´s gearbox broke after pre-qualifying so he was unable to exploit the progress we have made on set-up this morning.

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