Toyota happy with good run during qualifying
Panasonic Toyota Racing continued its strong recent form in qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone today with Jarno Trulli taking a second-row starting spot as Timo Glock joined him in the top eight. The cool weather continued at Silverstone, where air temperatures could only reach 16°C and track temperatures 25°C, although the rain stayed away despite dark clouds overhead.
Jarno was one of the quickest cars throughout qualifying and only needed one run on hard Bridgestone Potenza tyres to progress beyond the first session in fourth while Timo used the softer compound to also ease through. Both drivers used the soft compound for second qualifying with Jarno again in fine form before the decisive final session. Again the drivers used the softer tyre and Jarno secured his fifth top-six qualifying result of the season while Timo is in the top eight for the fourth time.
Jarno Trulli: "We had a very good run today in qualifying so I am pleased with the result and I am very happy with the car. We have made some aerodynamic upgrades for this race which have improved our performance and the gap to the fastest cars in low-fuel qualifying was quite small so this is a positive sign. The team has done a great job this weekend because from the first practice session the car felt strong and was very competitive. This has continued all through the weekend so far. Maybe my lap in Q3 could have been slightly quicker and we could have made it into the top three but in the end I think we are where we deserve to be. I have to admit I don't normally enjoy Silverstone and I haven't had much luck here so I am really happy to be at the front of the grid for what could be the last Grand Prix here for a while."
Timo Glock: "The result is pretty good and I have to be happy about being in the top eight because I was not sure it would be possible after practice yesterday. I have been struggling a bit with the car and compared to Jarno I haven't been able to achieve the same lap times. The problem for me has been getting temperature into the tyres and that has caused me to struggle for grip at times. I've not been completely happy all weekend but the result today looks decent so I hope I can score points tomorrow."
Pascal Vasselon, Senior General Manager Chassis: "All in all today's practice and qualifying went well and we have a good chance for the race tomorrow. We are not on the front row but we are in a strong position. It is also satisfying to see we are much closer to the fastest cars than we expected after yesterday's practice. So we are very much looking forward to the race because we believe we have a very strong strategy and genuine reason for optimism. The tyre situation at this race is a bit more standard in terms of one-lap pace and degradation so we should not see too many different strategies in the race. Also I have to say we are happy with the updates we have brought here and I would like to thank the people at the factory back in Cologne for all the hard work done to achieve this."
Jarno Trulli (Car 9, Chassis TF109-06)
3rd Practice: 3rd, 1m 19.125s (+0.226s), 15 laps
1st Qualifying: 4th, 1m 18.886s (+0.356), 6 laps
2nd Qualifying: 3rd, 1m 18.240s (+0.121), 7 laps
3rd Qualifying: 4th, 1m 20.091s (+0.582), 8 laps
Timo Glock (Car 10, Chassis TF109-05)
3rd Practice: 7th, 1m 19.868s (+0.969s), 19 laps
1st Qualifying: 9th, 1m 19.198s (+0.668s), 10 laps
2nd Qualifying: 10th, 1m 18.791s (+0.672), 8 laps
3rd Qualifying: 8th, 1m 20.490s (+0.981), 7 laps
