Italian Grand Prix - Qualifying Round-Up
ITALY DISAPPOINTED
Panasonic Toyota Racing goes into tomorrow's Italian Grand
Prix with a lot of work to do after a difficult afternoon
of qualifying today. Following overnight showers around Milan
the track was green but the rain held off on a warm and sunny
day at the Monza track with air temperatures around 30 degrees
Celsius. The afternoon qualifying session was competitive
and neither Jarno Trulli nor Ralf Schumacher made it into
the final shoot-out as both were eliminated after Q2. Jarno
recorded the 11th fastest time while Ralf was 13th but both
will at least have a free choice of strategy for tomorrow's
race. Despite the difficult start to the weekend, Toyota will
now push hard as it bids to score a strong result.
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B)
PROVISIONAL GRID: 11th
Free Practice Session 3: 14th, 15 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m23.467s (+1.802s)
Q1: 6th, 6 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.093s (+0.382s)
Q2: 11th, 6 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m21.924s (+0.699s)
"I'm disappointed to have missed out on the top ten
but we just didn't quite have the performance this afternoon.
Still I'm really happy about the job I did in qualifying and
I don't think I could have got anything more out of the package.
This morning I seemed to be short of top speed and while we
improved that for the afternoon it wasn't quite enough to
make it into the top ten. Still it will be a long race tomorrow
and I always enjoy racing in front of my home fans. I have
always been competitive around Monza but often missed out
on results. So I will push as hard as I can and hope to turn
that around."
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/10B)
PROVISIONAL GRID: 13th
Free Practice Session 3: 11th, 17 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m23.244s (+1.579s)
Q1: 13th, 7 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.622s (+0.911s)
Q2: 13th, 6 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.280s (+1.055s)
"That was certainly a bit more difficult than we expected
although we already had some problems during practice. Our
car has been difficult to drive this weekend and lacking in
consistency and that's why we had a disappointing result in
qualifying. After the heavy rain overnight the track was very
low on grip during this morning's practice session. That continued
for me in qualifying and I struggled to find the right balance
in both sessions. Still, we can learn a lot from what happened
today and tonight we will need to check what the problems
have been. We have a long race tomorrow and it's possible
to overtake around here. Last year we made up a few positions
in the race so let's hope we can make up ground again on Sunday."
Pascal Vasselon - Senior General Manager Chassis
"It is obviously very frustrating to watch the other
cars running around in Q3 without taking part ourselves. That
was our second worst qualifying session of the year so we
can't be happy about that. The positions were very tight and
despite the fact that neither of our cars made it past Q2,
Jarno was only 0.7 seconds off the quickest car. But we have
clearly been less competitive than we expected, especially
compared to this morning when we were in a similar position
on used tyres. So we will have to look into what happened
during qualifying. Ralf was struggling with stability under
braking which is a key performance factor in Monza, but Jarno's
balance was better so we have no clear explanation as to why
we struggled. The only saving grace is that we are free to
choose our strategy for tomorrow. Now we will have to analyse
what will be the best approach but we will have a busy evening
ahead as we prepare for the race."
|
