Super Aguri qualify with no problems

By nGO
March 11 2006

Saturday 11th, Super Aguri complete their first ever qualifying, cleanly and without any problems. Sato and Ide line up the grid 20th and 21st respectively with a clean and trouble free qualifying performance.

The session started with Ide as the first man out on a very windy and dusty track, then followed by Sato a while later. There was mayhem with 4 minutes to go in the first session as Kimi's accident stopped the clock, the entire pitlane was filled with roaring F1 cars desperately waiting for the green line to do their final lap. The qualifying session seemed more like a frantic race start but Luckily, there were no incidents during that time and all drivers managed to complete their laps without problems.

Sato will start the race from 20th on the grid having set a best time of 1.37.411, "Well done to everyone in the team - I am delighted with the result. Both cars qualified and we are on the grid for the race tomorrow, which was our target for this weekend of course, but is a great achievement by the team. We have to work hard on improving our performance going forward, but for now we have accomplished everything that we wanted to achieve so far this weekend and we hope that both cars have a good race tomorrow."

Ide wil start the race from 21st having set a best time 1.40.270 ,"Everything happened so quickly in the qualifying session; it felt like it happened in few minutes. It was so short that I didn't have time to be nervous or excited. My first F1 qualifying time is not fast and even though I am not in the last position, I am the practically the last! However, I am confident that I could get a higher qualifying position as the season progresses and I am very happy to be able to race tomorrow and will do my very best to finish the race safely. I am very grateful to the mechanics for their hard work in making sure that I am on the grid tomorrow."