Senna leaves Yamamoto behind
Hockenheim saw Hispania improve on their Silverstone performance but still unable to get ahead of Virgin or Lotus in Formula 1’s Class B.
An encouraging qualifying performance by Bruno Senna saw him qualify in 21st place and only two tenths slower than Timo Glock’s Virgin and the Lotus of Heikki Kovaleinen.
Unsurprisingly, Senna was proud of his qualifying run after being dropped for the previous round at Silverstone.
“My lap was almost perfect, as I could put all the sectors together. I think it was one of my best laps in qualifying this year, so I’m fairly happy. It was a good effort from the team.”
During the race however he finished four laps down on the winner, Fernando Alonso, and a lap behind Glock, the only other driver from the new teams to finish.
This was partly down to a slow puncture which ruined the Brazilian’s chances of beating Glock.
“We were having a good race today and we were very competitive this weekend,” added Senna, who ended the day four laps down in 19th. “We could race the others but then we had a slow puncture, unfortunately – we had to do an unplanned pit-stop which ended our challenge.”
Behind him, team-mate for the weekend Sakon Yamamoto qualified 1.25 seconds behind Senna and nearly a second slower than Vitantonio Liuzzi, who only managed one flying lap before crashing in session one. However the Japanese was positive about his performance.
During the race however he fell foul of Hispania’s reliability woes again, pulling out after 19 laps.
“Over the weekend, we were able to improve our performance but, unfortunately, we had some issues on the car and the gearbox. All in all, the race weekend was better than at Silverstone and I could get more experience with the car. We tried some adjustments on the setup which will help us for the next races.”
Senna was consistently quicker than his new team-mate throughout the weekend with the Brazilian a second faster in each of the three practice sessions and qualifying, with the race unable to provide a true reflection on the pace of both drivers due to Yamamoto’s retirement.
Despite the team’s reliability problems, team principal Colin Kolles was pleased with the team’s progress after a poor showing at Silverstone.
“Today, we didn’t reap the fruit of our labour. Bruno Senna had a good pace in the race until he had to do an unplanned second pit stop. A slow puncture made the second stop necessary and the chance for a better result was gone. I have to thank the team for their work the whole weekend and for their very good pit stops today.”
Next up is Hungary, where the team must hope that the tight, twisty circuit allows them to keep up with Virgin and Lotus.
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