Ricardo had a tough time in qualifying at Interlagos today, Traffic seemed to be his biggest problem, Ricardo placed himself 24th on the starting grid for the first Stock Car race of the season with a time of 1:41.327s, his team mate, Ricardo Sperafico is 30th.

Although the times amongst the drivers were very close, Ricardo was unable to make it through to the second stage of qualifying but he is still optimistic for the race tomorrow.

Ricardo had this to say about his qualifying session: "My biggest problems was the traffic. I saw Allam Khodair was slower, returning to the pits, exactly when I was trying to do my flying laps," he said. "Take traffic on the road, that's fine, but in the curves it interferes a lot"

In the overrun, Ricardo lost precious thousandths of a second, which took him out to fight for the first places. "I think we had the car to be among the 15 who passed through to the second stage of qualifying. I dont know what could have happened later, but i believe we could of made it into the first 15", revealed Ricardo. For him, starting in the back of the grid is not so good, but the confidence in the car's peformance brings an extra motivation to carry over to the race.

The starting grid for interlagos:

1 Ingo Hoffmann, (SP), AMG, Mitsubishi

2 Thiago Camilo (SP), Vogel, Chevrolet

3 Jorge Neto (SP), Eurofarma RC, Mitsubishi

4 Ricardo Maurício (SP), Medley WA Mattheis, Peugeot

5 Cacá Bueno (RJ), Eurofarma RC, Mitsubishi

6 Marcos Gomes (SP), A. Mattheis, Chevrolet

30 Ricardo Sperafico (PR), Panasonic Racing, Peugeot