Spanish Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
DRIVING UP THE CATALAN GRID
Panasonic Toyota Racing heads into tomorrow's Spanish Grand
Prix with high hopes after securing two spots in the top seven
of the grid. Today's qualifying session took place on a warm
afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya. There was a brief shower
before the morning's practice session but the rain held off
for the day's action and qualifying was sunny. Both Toyota's
drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli made it into Qualifying
Session 3, with Ralf taking 6th place and Jarno taking 7th.
Both drivers will now look to capitalise on this performance
in Sunday's race.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/05)
PROVISIONAL GRID: 6th
Free Practice Session 3: 13th
Lap Time: 1m17.199s (+1.541s)
Laps: 19
Qualifying Session 1: 8th
Lap Time: 1m16.234s (+0.418s)
Laps: 6
Qualifying Session 2: 6th
Lap Time: 1m15.164s (+0.527s)
Laps: 6
Qualifying Session 3: 6th
Lap Time: 1m15.885s (+1.237s)
Laps: 16
"We had a good day today but it was a tough afternoon's
work out there. We didn't use any new tyres this morning and
we had to go to the limit to make it through into Session
3. The car was fine during all three sessions and we had no
problems. The track was slightly slippery but nothing exceptional.
My final lap was a clean lap but a driver is never completely
satisfied, especially when a thousandth of a second is all
you need to gain a place. Still, we are confident in our strategy
and hopeful for the race, where we will push for a good result."
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/04)
PROVISIONAL GRID: 7th
Free Practice Session 3: 18th
Lap Time: 1m18.411s (+2.753s)
Laps: 18
Qualifying Session 1: 6th
Lap Time: 1m16.174s (+0.358s)
Laps: 6
Qualifying Session 2: 3rd
Lap Time: 1m15.068s (+0.431s)
Laps: 6
Qualifying Session 3: 7th
Lap Time: 1m15.976s (+1.328s)
Laps: 16
"We're quite satisfied with today's performance. I had
problems with understeer and the car behaviour changed a lot
during the sessions. That meant I could not quite pull out
the lap I would have liked at the end but we are still near
the front. Because everyone knows this track so well, everyone
runs at the absolute limit during this race weekend. We looked
good in the tests here and we're near the front again today
so things are looking positive. Now we will have to see how
we can perform in the race. We have worked hard to eliminate
the problems with tyre graining that we had yesterday. So
we hope that helps us tomorrow and we can put in a good race
performance."
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
"Qualifying went better than we expected. This morning
we decided to stay on used tyres so it was difficult to say
exactly how we would fare on new rubber this afternoon. We
were still confident we'd make the top ten and we managed
that. The drivers started just 10-12 seconds before the end
but you have to push to the limit. So it has to be tight and
everything went according to plan. The Bridgestone tyres were
strong and the two drivers did a very good job. Some other
teams opted for two runs at the end of Session 3 and it's
obviously something we considered, but our drivers feel very
confident with just one outing. Now we can look forward to
the race tomorrow. We have a sound strategy so let's see what
happens."
|
