Unsurprising qualifying for Toro Rosso
Neither of the Toro Rosso drivers were really disappointed by their qualifying sessions today as both more or less ended up where they expected to be. After fighting with Williams and Sauber, STR believe their race pace will be slightly better than their qualifying pace.
Sebastien Buemi, STR6-04:
FP3: Best lap 1.16.138, pos. 13th, 17 laps
Qualify: Best lap 1.15.334, Pos. 15th
“I would say we are more or less where I thought we would be, fighting with the Williams and the Saubers. My best lap was pretty good, but I’m a bit disappointed that half a tenth of a second cost me two places. It was the right decision to go for a final run in Q2 because without it I would have been further back. Now we must wait and see what happens tomorrow, because I think our race pace is a bit better than what we could produce in qualifying today.”
Jaime Alguersuari, STR6-01:
FP3: Best lap 1.16.145, pos. 14th, 19 laps
Qualify: Best lap 1.16.294, Pos. 18th
I have been struggling under braking and, after the morning, we changed something on the set-up to try and improve the car for qualifying. It looked a bit more positive, but I locked up the brakes and flat-spotted the front left tyre which limited my performance on that lap. That kept me out of Q2 which is a shame as the car had the potential to be fifteenth. I still believe we can have a strong race tomorrow, but it’s important that we try and learn from this session, to see why we are struggling so that we can improve our qualifying performance in Valencia in two weeks time and give me a better feeling from the car.”
Giorgio Ascanelli:
“The result of qualifying is pretty much where I expected us to be, although maybe a little bit better than expected with Sebastien. With Jaime, we are still struggling, as we have not found a way of giving him a car in which he can trust. In terms of race pace, free practice has shown we are in reasonably good shape. I am hoping for a dry race tomorrow, because if it rains, I think we will be at a disadvantage.”
