Mar.25 (GMM) Timo Glock has admitted that Virgin might struggle to qualify for the Australian grand prix.
F1 has reintroduced the old 107 per cent qualifying rule for 2011, and – based on the initial Friday time sheet – it means cars must be within about 6 seconds of the Q1 pole time on Saturday to qualify for the Melbourne grid.
Given the fact HRT has failed to get its car out of the pits so far, and also because the F111’s front wing is believed to have failed the mandatory crash test meaning that a 2010 model must be used at Albert Park, it is widely expected that Vitantonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan will not qualify.
But also outside the hypothetical 6 second 107 per cent qualifying cut-off seen in practice were both Timo Glock and Jerome d’Ambrosio, driving the new Virgin MVR02.
In fact, the pair was more than two seconds outside the 107 per cent window in P1.
“We were running quite a lot of fuel,” explained Glock to German broadcaster Sky, “but I think for us it’s going to be tight if we can’t get the tyres to work.
“Hopefully in Q1 Red Bull and co. will slow down a little bit and maybe use the hard tyre,” he added.
