GP2 Main Series: Istanbul, Qualifying

09 May 2008

Qualifying

#20 Mike Conway, 15th
#21 Ho Pin Tung, 19th

The weekend of Trident Racing at Istanbul encountered a rough start. At the end of an eventful qualifying session, Mike Conway took the 15th position, while Ho Pin Tung ended up 4 positions adrift in 19th. The 30-minute session was marred by several yellow flags that turned the research of the right time for a flyer into a true lottery. The main problem was to be able to start pushing with tires at the right temperature. The team had a tough job after the initial practice session, developing the new set-up solutions used in qualifying, and the same will be done before tomorrow's Race 1, starting at 15:00 on a 34-lap distance.

Ho Pin Tung

"This morning's free practice session was pretty troubled for us, but the set-up improvements we made definitely changed the handling of our car. In qualifying i had a better feeling and, honestly, I can't explain myself why the laptimes were higher than I imagined. I lost a couple of tenths in my fastest lap, and several yellow flags forced me to slow down at any time. We're gonna make further investigations with our engineers".

Mike Conway

"We made changes on the car's set-up after the practice session held this morning, but in qualifying the situation didn't improve much with the first set of tires. The engineers then made further changes, allowing me to improving my times in all the sectors. In my fastest lap I lost approximately 3 tenths of a second, and that's a shame because I would have made it to the top-10. Of course, today's one ain't the kind of result able to satisfy both me and the team, but we're gonna work hard to reverse the situation".