Narain Karthikeyan had a satisfactory day on the track, with an intensified performance providing him a lead against teammate Daniel Ricciardo in the final practice on Saturday morning. The Indian racer displayed immense consistency in qualifying race, finishing ahead of the Virgin racing cars. However, things turned around when the stewards awarded him a five-place grid penalty for impeding Michael Schumacher of Mercedes at Turn 10 during qualifying.
"I'm in a bad mood, You have to maintain one racing line to avoid the dust, so how exactly could I have been impeding another car?," he said referring to the stewards' decision.
The HRT Formula One Team doesn't possess the fastest car but on Saturday, like other teams, it too showcased improvement in their timings, all along the race. The HRT Team is usually over six seconds slower than the leaders Red Bull Racing but on Saturday the difference was compressed to an impressive 5.8 seconds. Although, the degree of betterment was not that huge, for HRT, the improvement means a lot. Apart from being unhappy over the penalty handed to him, Karthikeyan looked and sounded content with his performance.
"I had a fantastic qualifying session, no doubt about it. We beat the Virgin cars and it could have gone either way between my teammate and me. The difference is less than one-tenth of a second. I'm driving really well and I'm feeling good in the car," he said.
The Indian team, Sahara Force India too, put on a decent show, with its racer Adrian Sutil, claiming the 8th spot. Paul di Resta had a difficult time with the understeer and qualified 12th. Vijay Mallya looked quite satisfied after the session at the team's motor home.
"At the end of the day we brought everything we had for this race. We did an aero upgrade, saved new engines for this race. I was hoping that both cars would get into Q3. The free practice performance certainly indicated that could happen. Paul had an unfortunate qualifying outing but Adrian put up a great show today that demonstrates what this car is capable of. We're only behind the Red Bulls, McLarens and Ferraris and one Mercedes. That's a good thing and at our home Grand Prix that's very essential," Mallya stated, while eyeing potential points. "This is the maximum we could've achieved today. It was an important session for us," he further said.
"I'm in a bad mood, You have to maintain one racing line to avoid the dust, so how exactly could I have been impeding another car?," he said referring to the stewards' decision.
The HRT Formula One Team doesn't possess the fastest car but on Saturday, like other teams, it too showcased improvement in their timings, all along the race. The HRT Team is usually over six seconds slower than the leaders Red Bull Racing but on Saturday the difference was compressed to an impressive 5.8 seconds. Although, the degree of betterment was not that huge, for HRT, the improvement means a lot. Apart from being unhappy over the penalty handed to him, Karthikeyan looked and sounded content with his performance.
"I had a fantastic qualifying session, no doubt about it. We beat the Virgin cars and it could have gone either way between my teammate and me. The difference is less than one-tenth of a second. I'm driving really well and I'm feeling good in the car," he said.
The Indian team, Sahara Force India too, put on a decent show, with its racer Adrian Sutil, claiming the 8th spot. Paul di Resta had a difficult time with the understeer and qualified 12th. Vijay Mallya looked quite satisfied after the session at the team's motor home.
"At the end of the day we brought everything we had for this race. We did an aero upgrade, saved new engines for this race. I was hoping that both cars would get into Q3. The free practice performance certainly indicated that could happen. Paul had an unfortunate qualifying outing but Adrian put up a great show today that demonstrates what this car is capable of. We're only behind the Red Bulls, McLarens and Ferraris and one Mercedes. That's a good thing and at our home Grand Prix that's very essential," Mallya stated, while eyeing potential points. "This is the maximum we could've achieved today. It was an important session for us," he further said.
