Nico's Budapest Blog: Saturday

Posted on Sunday 26 Jul 2009 and tagged with Nico, Hungary.

There was a lot of confusion at the end of qualifying because the timing screens went down and no-one knew exactly what was going on. With about five minutes of the session to go, I was in second place and I only discovered that I was fifth after I’d jumped out of the car.

It was actually quite funny because all the drivers in Q3 were walking around at the end of the session asking each other what times they’d done. By a process of elimination, we could then work out where we’d qualified, but it was hardly high-tech! Even Bernie came along and told us that the times would be back up soon and not to worry.

What was worrying, however, was the accident involving Felipe Massa at the end of Q2. Many of you will have already seen what happened: a spring from Rubens Barrichello’s car hit his helmet and he was hospitalised as a result. I’m told that the subsequent operation went well, which is great news, but we must think about ways in which we can protect the drivers’ heads more than is currently the case because we are very vulnerable as things stand. Perhaps we could use a dragster-style roll-cage, or something similar.

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race, I’ve got a good fuel load on the car and I’m confident that I can do well. The KERS cars will be very quick off the line, but we have got good race pace. A podium is still possible if I can have a clean race.