Early woes hit Caterham duo in Monaco

Caterham F1 had looked set for a strong outing in Monaco as they lined up for the start of Sunday's Grand Prix on the streets of the principality, with Giedo van der Garde having earned a career-best 15th place on the grid and his team mate Charles Pic also up into 18th place, both of them ahead of their back row nemeses from Marussia as well as the out-of-position Ferrari of Felipe Massa. 

Unfortunately, all the high hopes and expectations of maybe coming away from Monte Carlo with a point or two soon faded away as troubles hit both drivers early in the race. 

"I made a good start from 15th but then [Williams' Pastor] Maldonado hit me, damaging the floor and meaning I had to come straight in for a new nose on lap 1," explained van der Garde of how that hard-earned grid position had been squandered. 

"I rejoined in 22nd and at that point, even though I had good pace and was catching the pack up again, it looked like my race was over, especially after losing KERS on lap 10," he admitted. "We were able to reset KERS and then Monaco did what it always does, and when the safety car came out for Massa's crash I was able to unlap myself and get back into the action. 

"In the car it felt like I couldn't have any less luck, but then on lap 45 I was with Chilton, Bianchi and Maldonado when they had their incident," he sighed. "I didn't really see what happened between them, but obviously the red flag gave me a chance to start again, this time from 18th. 

The intermission proved to be a silver lining for the Dutch driver: "From the restart, on soft tyres and with 28 laps to go, I was holding position in 17th after Chilton's drive-through and then the second safety car came out and I moved up to 14th when a couple of cars ahead pitted," he recalled. "I was right behind [Williams' Valtteri] Bottas, in front of [Sauber's Esteban] Gutiérrez, but unfortunately after 13 laps the tyres were destroyed. 

In the end the race came down to a battle over 14th between van der Garde and his Marussia counterpart Max Chilton, and the Caterham just didn't have the edge it needed to hold on. "I had Chilton right behind me and with the tyres in the state they were, I couldn't hold him off so I finished 15th." 

That was still a much better day than it had looked early on - and certainly a result that Charles Pic would have been eyeing up enviously, considering his race ended after just seven laps of the Monaco street circuit with the back of his car in flames. 

"It looks like the cause of the retirement was a gearbox problem and the fire was from the exhausts which had overheated," the Frenchman explained later. "It looked a lot more dramatic than it felt in the car; I could feel there was a problem and started pulling over and as soon as the car stopped there was a lot of smoke, but it was all out quickly and the marshals did a good job to clear it away without bringing out the safety car.

Crash.net

Saturday in Monte Carlo - Giedo's team quote

Weather

FP3: Dry, sunny; min / max track temp 28° - 29°, air temp 18°

Q1: Overcast, light rain; track temp 21°, air temp 17°

Q2: Overcast, light rain; track temp 21°, air temp 16°

Fastest laps / positions:

FP3: PIC 1.17.902, 19th / VDG 1.18. 102, 20th

Q1: VDG: 1.26.095, 16th / PIC 1.26.633, 18th

Q2: VDG: 1.19.408, 15th

Total laps:

FP3: PIC 20 / VDG 20

Q1: VDG 13 / PIC 13

Q2: VDG 8

Runplan

Giedo van der Garde, car #21, chassis CT03-04

FP3

1104 - 1116: Run 1, 8 laps (soft tyres)

Changes: front anti-roll bar

1127 - 1138: Run 2, 7 laps (soft tyres) RED FLAG

Changes: front wing flap angle

1152 - 1200: Run 3, 5 laps (supersoft tyres)

Q1

1400 - 1415: Run 1, 9 laps (intermediate tyres)

Changes: n/a

1415 - 1421: Run 2, 4 laps (intermediate tyres)

Q2

1427 - 1435: Run 1, 3 laps (intermediate tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle

1435 - 1444: Run 2, 5 laps (supersoft tyres)

Team Quotes

Giedo van der Garde: "I'm obviously very pleased to put my name into the Q2 timesheets for the first time this year and I want to thank Tony, Cyril and the whole team for the jobs everyone did today. Honestly, it's a great feeling, but it's still part of the learning process for me. I've said since the start of the season that I'd make progress, and today showed how far we've all come in just six races, and there's more to come.

"Saturday started pretty well and in FP3 we went out for a long-ish run on the softs straight away but, like Charles, for me the car was understeering a lot. I was having to use throttle to help turn the car so we made a couple of mechanical changes and from then it was a bit better, but the tyres weren't really coming in as much as we'd have liked, so we tried another mechanical change for quali and the results are pretty obvious!

"In Q1 we went out very early as there were reports of more showers coming. As it turned out that wasn't the case, but we timed the stop well and had about four more quick laps on the inters at the end of Q1, enough time to put myself into Q2.

"Q2 started with a bit more rain, so we again went for the inters, but after one lap I thought it was dry enough for slicks so we boxed, went onto the supersofts and was the first car to make the switch. For a while we were looking at Q3, but that's not where we are performance-wise yet, so we're all really happy with Q2.

"Sunday could be very interesting. I start between the two Williams cars of Bottas and Maldonado and I've had good starts all year, so hopefully I can have another good launch, avoid anything like the GP2 mess on Friday, and from there anything's possible. I finished on the podium here last year in GP2 and, while that's not going to happen this year, we will definitely be racing quite a few cars all afternoon."

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal, Caterham F1 Team: "This is one of the good days, the best so far this year for our team. Personally, I'm proud of the work everyone is doing to give us moments like seeing Giedo's name in Q2. He drove very well, showing how he much he keeps developing and how he's brave enough to be the first driver out there to make the call to go for it on slicks in what were still very tricky conditions on track. Both he and Charles have been driving very well all weekend, minimising the mistakes and pushing when they need to and Charles was unlucky not to join Giedo in Q2. However, he also showed his talent by being right in the mix in Q1 until the flag fell and with the pace and racecraft he's shown all year, particularly in Bahrain and Spain, he'll be right in the action tomorrow.

"This is another small step in our ongoing development, another reason why we are all here working so hard to be part of the show, and I want everyone in our team to use this as another source of motivation for Sunday and the rest of the season. We obviously have the main task ahead of us tomorrow, but days like this are why we're in this sport, and to have our first Q2 of the year when Tony's on track with us makes this a very special day."

CaterhamF1

Monaco GP: Giedo van der Garde says Caterham result 'career high'

Giedo van der Garde regards qualifying 15th for the Monaco Grand Prix as a career high.

The Dutchman reached Q2 for the first time in Formula 1 as he made Caterham's first appearance in the second stage of qualifying this season.

Even though he has won races in his junior career, as well as the Formula Renault 3.5 title, he believes this achievement is up there with anything else he has achieved.

"Yes, it's a big day for me and the team," van der Garde told AUTOSPORT when asked if this was a career high.

"It was a great day for us and I'm very happy and proud of what we did.

"It's not easy in these conditions, but you have to make the most of them and take what you can get."

Caterham judged the conditions well in Q1, opting to bring van der Garde in for fresh intermediate rubber, which allowed him to improve his time by a big enough margin to end up ahead of Paul di Resta and Esteban Gutierrez.

In Q2, van der Garde gambled on a switch to slicks when everyone else was on intermediates. He climbed as high as fifth at one point before being demoted by faster cars that changed tyres later in the session.

"We played it quite aggressive," he said of the team's strategy.

"I was the first one on slicks and it was my call.

"But at those moments, you have nothing to lose and you have to try to get what you can."

Despite being inside the top 10 in the closing minutes of the session, van der Garde believes that he did the best he could have done and that it was impossible to reach Q3 without the rain returning.

He ended up just over a second-and-a-half off the Q3 cut-off time, but believes that there was no more pace in the car because of the conditions.

"The gap to Q3 was quite big," he said.

"It was still wet at the end of Q2 so it was tough and the car was sliding around a lot."

With the Caterham having shown stronger race pace than qualifying pace so far this weekend, van der Garde is hopeful of a good result in Sunday's race.

"You never know - as we saw in the GP2 race on Friday, anything can happen at into the first turn," he said when asked if he felt scoring a point might be possible.

Autosport