China: Post qualifying comment

By Spyker MF1 media
September 30 2006

In what has been an extremely busy day for the Spyker MF1 Team, both Christijan Albers and Tiago Monteiro qualified in 19th and 20th positions, respectively, for the Chinese Grand Prix.

The team was thrilled to announce its 2007 Engine supply agreement with Ferrari just before qualifying but unfortunately struggled in the wet session.

Tiago Monteiro (POR)
Car #18 (Chassis: M16-03)
Third Timed Practice Session: 12th, 1:42.612 (+2.419), 14 laps completed
Qualifying: 20th, 1.23.920
Quote: "It obviously wasn't a great day for any of the Bridgestone runners generally but for us especially we had a number of other issues. I felt that with these conditions we could have done a lot better. It's never easy but we will hope for changing conditions again tomorrow; it's at these sort of races where wet weather can be very beneficial for the team."

Christijan Albers (NED)
Car#19 (Chassis: M16-02)
Third Timed Practice Session: 7th, 1:41.463 (1.270), 11 laps completed
Qualifying: 19th, 1:49.542
Quote: "In the rain we are just not quick enough so hopefully it will be dry tomorrow. I am looking forward to the race and hope that we can make the best use of the conditions and any events that take place during the race."

Dominic Harlow, Head of Race and Test Engineering: "The weather made for some very interesting conditions today but qualifying clearly didn't go our way. We tried a particular strategy using the extreme wet tyres with which unfortunately both drivers struggled to find any performance. We will investigate other problems that Tiago encountered during the session and hope to find a solution before the race tomorrow."

Colin Kolles, Team Principal: "Obviously we had high hopes for qualifying due to the weather conditions and the fact that both our drivers have been improving on the circuit all weekend. Unfortunately some issues that we can easily solve cropped up fairly early on and affected our ability to make use of the conditions and post some good times. The fantastic news about Ferrari agreeing to supply our engines next season has given all of the team a lift and I hope we can make some more good news in the race tomorrow."

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