 Yoong Fails to Qualify Again Saturday July 6th, 2002
Yoong lapped the Silverstone circuit, one of the most familiar to drivers who test extensively there, in 1:24.785. The official qualifying cutoff time was 1:24.527 and stewards rejected a Minardi request to allow Yoong to compete in the race, saying there were no exceptional circumstances. "I gave it my best shot today, but unfortunately, it wasn't good enough," said Yoong. "I'm obviously extremely disappointed to have missed making the grid for tomorrow's race, particularly by such a small margin. "The biggest problem, though, was that we lost a lot of time in the quick corners, a factor that was due, at least in part, I believe, to the lack of power steering on the cars this weekend." Minardi are based in Britain and Italy and the Malaysian, who brings important sponsorship to the financially struggling team, has now failed to qualify for races in both countries. He failed to set a valid time at Imola in April. Yoong's Australian teammate Mark Webber was more than two seconds quicker, qualifying 20th out of 21. Williams' pole position driver Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia was nearly six seconds faster than the Malaysian.
Published at 14:31:14 GMT
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Malaysian driver Alex Yoong will miss Sunday's British Formula One Grand Prix after failing to qualify his Minardi for the second time in 10 races.
(03-16-2005): 
