Bahrain Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
Panasonic Toyota Racing will head into tomorrow's Bahrain
Grand Prix with a lot of work to do after a disappointing
performance in today's qualifying. At a windy Sakhir circuit,
Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher took 14th and 17th places
respectively in this afternoon's sessions. The new qualifying
system introduced for 2006 consists of three parts –
two sessions of 15 minutes after each of which the slowest
six cars are eliminated, followed by a 20 minute shoot-out
between the remaining ten quickest cars. Unfortunately neither
of the Toyota cars made it into the final group so the team
will have its work cut out in tomorrow's race. Nevertheless
the team will give everything to salvage a strong result from
the first race of the season.
BAHRAIN ON MY PARADE
Jarno Trulli will start the Bahrain Grand Prix from 14th place
on the grid following today's qualifying sessions.
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/04)
GRID: 14th
Free Practice Session 3: 7th
Lap Time: 1m33.038s (+1.181s)
Laps: 16
Qualifying Session 1: 13th
Lap Time: 1m33.987s (+1.554s)
Laps: 7
Qualifying Session 2: 14th
Lap Time: 1m33.066s (+1.851s)
Laps: 4
"There wasn't a lot more that I could do out there today.
In the first session I was on a quick lap when the red flag
came out so I had to abandon that. When we started again we
hit traffic so it was not very quick but it was good enough
to make it through. The two laps I put together in Session
2 were both good laps and they were about as quick as I could
have expected. From a driving perspective, the new qualifying
system doesn't change very much in the first two sessions.
You need the same kind of approach, putting together a lap
when it matters with the track getting quicker all the time.
Of course there is traffic that we didn't have last year so
timing is important. Still, our performance shows that as
a team we have a lot of work to do to make it up to the level
of the top teams."
SAKHIR PUNCH
Ralf Schumacher will line up in 17th place on the grid for
tomorrow's Bahrain Grand Prix after a difficult afternoon.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/05)
GRID: 17th
Free Practice Session 3: 9th
Lap Time: 1m33.523s (+1.666s)
Laps: 14
Qualifying Session 1: 17th
Lap Time: 1m34.702s (+2.269s)
Laps: 7
"It is obviously very disappointing that we just missed
out on making it through Session 1 today. I was just starting
a flying lap when the red flags came out. Then, when everyone
went out for their quick laps I was at the back of the pack.
I just lost the temperature in the tyres and I couldn't warm
up the tyre again before my lap. That meant that I was sliding
around for most of the lap and I was not particularly surprised
that I didn't make it through to the other sessions. A disappointing
day, then, that confirms that we have hard work ahead to force
our way up the grid. But it is very early in the season and
the full picture of relative performance will only emerge
after the first few races."
GULF IN PERFORMANCE
In the wake of today's disappointing qualifying session, Toyota
will push hard to gain ground in tomorrow's race.
Mike Gascoyne – Technical Director Chassis
"That was a disappointing qualifying session, especially
given our performance this morning. After the red flag in
the first session, Ralf got caught in traffic and therefore
set a time that meant he didn't make it through that session.
With Jarno we had reasonable expectations of qualifying in
the top ten. But with the track getting quicker and quicker
than this morning we didn't seem to be able to improve our
lap times as the others did. So it is a disappointing result
but it's all part of the learning process. We have to look
to get both cars home to the finish tomorrow, hopefully to
pick up some points and also hopefully to learn about the
performance of the car in race conditions on our tyres. We're
free to play with race strategy so we have to look tonight
to have the best strategy to get both cars into the points."
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