HRT driver Vitantonio Liuzzi has said that he fully intends to qualify for the Malaysian Grand Prix, a feat his team failed to manage at the curtain-raiser in Australia.
Both he and team mate Narain Karthikeyan could not hustle their cars to within 107% of polesitter Sebastian Vettel’s time in Melbourne, and accordingly did not receive the necessary permission to race.
But Liuzzi told Autosport that Australia represented abnormal conditions and that he envisaged a different situation this weekend.
“I am really confident and motivated for this race,” he said.
“I’m sure things will be a lot different from Australia because we are better prepared and conscious of what we need to do.”
Liuzzi’s team principal Colin Kolles added his voice to the Italian’s optimism.
“The expectations for Malaysia are to get back to normality,” he said.
“We know that the car has potential and we hope that we will be able to get all updates on the cars. The 107 per cent should not be an issue under normal circumstances.”
