For the first time this season Hispania beat another car on outright pace in qualifying.

Bruno Senna was the architect of this achievement, finishing seven tenths ahead of Virgin Racing’s Lucas Di Grassi and eight tenths ahead of his teammate, Karun Chandhok.

No reliability issues or handling issues for Di Grassi, he was beaten by Senna’s outright pace.

Sadly though neither car made it home with Chandhok retiring after 52 laps, after Senna pulling out six laps earlier with a fuel system problem.

However race pace was again was encouraging with Senna’s fastest lap being one tenth quicker than both Lotus cars, and Chandhok only a tenth off the pace of the Malaysian team.

Bruno Senna spent most of the race fighting with compatriot Di Grassi, until his retirement, however the Brazilian is confident he can fight with the Virgin cars again soon.

“During the race, we were a bit unlucky with traffic as we were ahead of both Virgins. It is sad we had a fuel pressure problem that caused us to end our race prematurely, but we are on top of it and hopefully we can get it sorted.

“I had a fair battle with Lucas di Grassi, as we had a faster car than Virgin, and hopefully we can have another fight for positions soon.”

Indications of Hispania’s improved pace came throughout the weekend with Senna being a tenth of a second off Virgin and Lotus in both of the practise sessions he participated in.

Sakon Yamamoto also got a run out on Friday morning, taking over Senna’s car and coming last in the session, half a second off Chandhok’s time in that session.

Slowly but surely though Hispania are closing on their rivals at the back end of the grid. Let’s see if Canada reaffirms this.

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