Vitaly Petrov disappointed with 10th place in qualification caused by technical problems

Vitaly Petrov said he believes the technical problem that caused a red flag at the end of 2nd qualification for the Chinese GP cost him a chance to place much higher on the starting grid than the tenth position he achieved.

The Russian pilot was the fourth fastest in 2nd qualifiaction before his car ground to a halt with less than three minutes of the session to go. Having retired from the segment, Petrov was unable to participate in the top ten shoot out and felt that he had failed to capitalize on his car’s potential.

«I don’t know, after the second or third corner something started to be wrong with the car,» Petrov explained to the BBC as quoted by Autosport.com.

«I tried to go full throttle but the car was not working, I tried to change the gears and that didn’t work also. We need to check to analyse what happened.

«But to be honest I am very, very disappointed because we made a big step on set-up. We improved quite a lot from yesterday because it was really nice to drive the car. It would have been very interesting to see what would have happened in Q3.»