Japanese GP: HRT Saturday quotes

Narain Karthikeyan - 24th: "In the morning the car was working very well and my first laps were fantastic but then I spun off and damaged my new floor so we had to go back to the old one. In qualifying I barely had any grip and on my last lap I went long at 130R. It wasn't a good qualifying session for me, but the car is performing much better and, although tomorrow will be a tough race, we will try and finish it in the best way possible."

Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director: "Today we opted for a different balance to yesterday to make the car more neutral, with less understeer, and we got it right. Frankly we didn't expect to come so close to our rivals at a high downforce circuit like this one and it was a pleasant surprise besides being a reward for a job well done. Pedro's times were very competitive and he was in the 103.6%, which is the second best result in qualifying of the year. It was a shame that Narain damaged the new floor and had to come out with the old one. This result adds to the data we analyzed and confirms that the aero upgrades that we introduced at Singapore are an important step forward. In tomorrow's race, tyre wear will play an important role and the most probable thing will be to opt for a two or three stop strategy."