Kobayashi eyes Sauber's first points
Date published : 03 Apr 2010 - 13:11:52
Kamui Kobayashi has set his sights on delivering Sauber its first points finish of the season in Malaysia on Sunday after impressively mastering the wet qualifying conditions to make the top 10.
Sauber had continued to run in the lower end of the midfield in the three practice sessions at Sepang but the unpredictable created by Saturday afternoon's rain showers helped the team fight for Q3 positions with both cars.
Kobayashi easily made the cut in sixth place before going on to claim ninth on the grid a career-high position he was delighted with given Sauber's current difficulties in the dry.
I am very happy to have made it into Q3 for the first time, he said after the team decided not to run its revised F-duct' system on his car in qualifying.
Last year in Brazil, also in wet conditions, I was close but then I spun on my last lap in Q2.
I learnt this lesson. In dry conditions our performance seemed to be rather difficult, therefore I am even happier with my position.
It is not easy to drive in the wet because of aquaplaning, which obviously will get worse if it rains tomorrow because of the heavy cars for the race start.
But I am determined to score points tomorrow.
Pedro de la Rosa eventually missed out on joining him by 0.371s, the Spaniard explaining he was happy with the C29's handling in the wet but that traffic prevented him completing a clean Q2 lap.
It was a quite difficult qualifying because of the changeable conditions, he said.
You never knew how much water to expect when braking into a corner.
The car was pretty good in the wet, and I could have made it into the top 10 if I just had a single clear lap.
But even on my fastest lap I had to overtake two cars in the last sector.
However, certainly we can look forward to a very exciting race tomorrow!
After the problematic start his first season back in charge of the team, Peter Sauber admitted the Q3 result would give the team a boost.
It's nice to have one car in 12th and the other one in the top 10, the veteran Swiss said.
The engineers and drivers did a good job today. This result is motivating for the whole team. We are looking forward to a thrilling race.
