11th spot for Webber for European Grand Prix

June 28, 2003

Following the mixed weather of yesterday’s provisional qualifying session which prevented him from posting a competitive time, Mark Webber secured 11th spot on the grid for Sunday’s 60-lap European Grand Prix in today’s official qualifying session at the Nurburgring, Germany with a time of 1min 33.066s.

“I would have liked to have done a slightly stronger last sector and felt I could have done a bit better at the last chicane but all in all, it was a fairly solid lap,” said Webber afterwards.

The 26-year old Jaguar Racing driver has enjoyed two solid days of testing and practicing for the race, and this morning set the second fastest time to Toyota’s Olivier Panis in the opening practice session with a time of 1min 31.224s.

“The guys have done a really good job this weekend and we’ve had no reliability issues so I hope we can take this through to the race. We’ve done a lot of work over the past two days towards the race in terms of set-up work and have a good strategy that should work for us tomorrow so I hope we’re rewarded with some points.

“I think it will be a tough battle with Toyota but I’m looking forward to racing and finishing ahead of them. In reality, that’s all we can hope for this weekend as the other teams ahead of us could be a bit too strong for us. The race won’t be all about fuel but tyres too, and it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.

Official qualifying

1. K. Raikkonen McLaren 1:31.523
2. M. Schumacher Ferrari 1:31.555
3. R. Schumacher Williams 1:31.619
4. J. Montoya Williams 1:31.765
5. R. Barrichello Ferrari 1:31.780
6. J. Trulli Renault 1:31.976
7. O. Panis Toyota 1:32.350
8. F. Alonso Renault 1:32.424
9. D. Coulthard McLaren 1:32.742
10. C. DaMatta Toyota 1:32.949
11. M. Webber Jaguar 1:33.066

16. A. Pizzonia Jaguar 1:34.159