22 August 2010 |
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Spyker Squadron is full of confidence and fully prepared for today's 1000 KM of the Hungaroring. After three practice sessions on Saturday Tom Coronel was only just over a second behind the pole position in qualifying this morning. The Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R will therefore start from eleventh on the grid.
On Saturday the Spyker Squadron team worked hard to get the set-up of the car right for the 4.381 km long Hungaroring circuit. The straights and slow corners were giving the brakes and tires a very hard time and the team did everything possible to create the best possible set-up for the car. The gathered information and changes in set-up resulted in a lap time in qualifying on Sunday that was over half a second quicker than the fastest time on Saturday and only a few tenths clear of the front of the GT2 grid. The team will now prepare the car for the 1000 KM of the Hungaroring which starts at four o'clock this afternoon. Tom Coronel: "I think qualifying went fine. I had a flawless lap, no mistakes, no problems at all. The car felt really strong and I positioned it on the track where I wanted it. I asked the mechanics before the session "What if we set a 1:47.8?" Their response resulted in me having a good feeling afterwards. The time is good, it is so close to each other, if you find a few tenths you are up a few places. I am confident for the race. Everybody is in a good vibe, it feels strong. At the beginning of the race our pace will be ok and if we don't have any failures or whatsoever we could get a good result. The set-up was a slight guess. We made a couple of set-ups before the weekend. One set-up Peter was more confident with and I was more confident with another set-up. For qualifying we made the car quite stiff and we got it on the track in the right spot, so as for the set-up I am really satisfied. We made the right choice at the right time." Peter van Erp, Managing Director Spyker Squadron: "Eleventh place. The car was perfect and it was all the car could do at this moment. We are only a few tenths of a second behind the top cars. We have to be smart and sneaky during the race, aggressive during the pit stops, aggressive on our in- and out laps. I hope we can win some time on that. Maybe we will have some luck during the safety car periods, we will certainly get a few, but that is always a lottery. Without evolutions and testing this is just it. Fortunately we have made a lot of progress during the weekend. Tom was really satisfied with the car. The lay-out of the track however causes the tires to have more drop-off as they don't have time to rest, but I have already heard that more GT2 teams have this problem. Hopefully we can limit it during the race. Whatever happens we will do our best to get a good result, we will just fight for it!"
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