After making smooth progress yesterday in their preparations for the Italian Grand Prix, Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro continued to work on developing a suitable chassis balance for the high-speed, low-downforce requirements of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in the last two free practice sessions. Karthikeyan had a spin at the end of the morning, which caused a fair amount of damage to his car. His mechanics did a fantastic job to repair his race car on time for qualifying, in which Monteiro and Karthikeyan had clean laps and will start from the 17th and 19th positions respectively for tomorrow’s Grand Prix.

TEAM QUOTES ON THE ITALIAN GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING SESSION

NARAIN KARTHIKEYAN (EJ5/01)

“My lap was ok considering the accident I had this morning when I spun the car under braking, trying to get heat into a new set of tyres. I am still feeling a bit sore. The mechanics worked really hard to fix the car and they did a great job. However, in qualifying, the car was a bit unstable so we decided to take it a bit easier. Nevertheless, I am pretty confident for tomorrow’s race.”

TIAGO MONTEIRO (EJ15B/02)

“I am quite satisfied with my lap in qualifying today. The new car felt ok, however Monza is not the easiest track to gain a greater benefit but we had more stability in the entry of the corners. We are looking forward to tracks with more downforce where we will be able to use the advantage we have with the new package. Here the track is tricky for everyone as the low downforce set-up naturally makes the car a bit unstable. I am happy with the new car and we know there is still much more to come.”

ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR

“It was not the best qualifying session after the work we have done beforehand. Both drivers struggled a bit to get heat into their tyres for their qualifying runs. Narain’s case was made worse by having a small off this morning. We had to rebuild the car quite significantly in the gap so it made his job a bit more difficult. We know we have a good strategy for tomorrow and if we keep our heads down, we should be in a good position for a competitive race.”

2005 Italian Grand Prix - Main Page
2005 Italian Grand Prix - Team and Driver Qualifying Reports Page

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