Italy: Disappointed at rather modest results

Disappointed Nick
By Phil Huff (13/09/2003)
September 13 2003

Team Sauber Petronas drivers Nick Heidfeld and Heinz-Harald Frentzen will start tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix in 16th and 14th places respectively after the second qualifying session.

Nick Heidfeld: "Already in the practice sessions this morning I was struggling with poor balance on the car and in addition to this mine had less top speed compared to Heinz-Harald's. Then during the pre-qualifying warm-up I experienced difficulties bringing the brakes up to optimum temperature so I opted to be a little cautious under braking during my qualifying lap. It then transpired that they worked fine and that I could have been more aggressive, which was frustrating."

Heinz-Harald Frentzen: "I had problems with the tyres and couldn't brake as heavily as I wanted, and though my first two sectors were good I lost time with oversteer in the Parabolica. It's a shame we weren't able to make optimal use of our new aerodynamic package due to balance problems, because it was very promising in last week's test here."

Peter Sauber: "We prepared ourselves for Monza with great intensity, worked hard and invested a lot. Taking all this into account it is disappointing that this afternoon's results are rather modest."