Toro Rosso surprised by lack of pace
Everybody at Toro Rosso was a bit baffled to see how both drivers failed to improve their performances after FP3. Drastic setup changes didn't pay off as hoped, so the team eventually finds itself in 16th and 17th place on tomorrow's Turkish GP starting grid.
Sebastien Buemi, STR6-02:
FP3: 1.27.080, pos. 10th 16 laps
Qualifying: 1.27.255, Pos. 16th
“It’s a bit hard to understand why we are so far off. I would say that this morning, the track was quicker for us and I am not sure why I could not do the same lap time this afternoon as I managed in the morning. Maybe it’s down to the drastic increase in temperature that we seem to have lost some grip. Overall, I am therefore disappointed with this qualifying session as I feel we could have done better and maybe been higher up on the grid, as one tenth of a second would have made a big difference. Let’s see what happens tomorrow, when apparently there is a chance it might rain and that could change everything.”
Jaime Alguersuari, STR6-03:
FP3: 1.27.724, pos. 17th, 15 laps
Qualifying: 1.27.572, Pos. 17th
“All things considered, this is not such a bad result as at least we have saved a set of new tyres for the race which is a positive point. Maybe we could have improved the balance of the car on another set, as it changed a lot from this morning to the afternoon, which was down to the change in temperature and track condition. I did not do so much running in the morning which obviously did not help. But I must be positive and am looking forward to having a good race tomorrow as we have enough tyres to do well, so let’s see what happens.”
Giorgio Ascanelli, Technical director:
“I am not surprised at this result: the gaps have got smaller between the teams in our part of the pack. However, I do not understand yet why we did not improve our times from this morning, although one can assume that the increased temperature has changed the balance of the cars. Jaime has had a difficult time so far here and we had to change his set-up dramatically from yesterday to today, when he improved a little but not enough and he lost time with his spin. Sebastien looked a bit better this morning, but there was already a hint that Williams had made some more progress. We came here with a few new parts, but it has not been enough. In Q2, we did not want to put all our eggs in one basket, so while Seb tried a second run to see if he could improve his performance, with Jaime we opted to save a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow’s race. As things turned out, it seems Jaime has come off best in that particular decision.”
