Bahrain Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
IN AND OUT OF DUNE
Panasonic Toyota Racing will line up with one car in the
top ten of the grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix after a mixed
qualifying session at Sakhir. Following a week of unusual
weather around the kingdom of Bahrain including heavy thunderstorms,
there were spots of rain during morning practice but qualifying
stayed dry. Unfortunately Ralf Schumacher missed half the
morning session due to a problem changing his rear suspension
so that compromised him coming into the afternoon. He was
unable to make it into Q3 and he will line up 14th tomorrow.
Jarno had a better day’s work, comfortably making it
into the final shoot-out and ending up with 9th place. Toyota
will now push to make the most of these positions tomorrow
and chase a third consecutive points finish in the race.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 9th
Free Practice Session 3 14th Lap Time: 1m 33.724s (+1.181s)
Laps: 22
Q1 6th Lap Time: 1m 33.218s (+0.775s) Laps: 6
Q2 7th Lap Time: 1m 32.429s (+1.070s) Laps: 6
Q3 9th Lap Time: 1m 34.154s (+1.502s) Laps: 10
“It’s good to be in the top ten again but this
one was very tough. I managed to do a very good job in Q2,
but obviously we had a hard time at the end of the final shoot-out.
It’s difficult because it’s slippery out there
and all weekend I’ve been struggling with the grip and
the balance. Still, the whole team has done a good job so
far this weekend and it’s been completely trouble-free
for me. Obviously the race is a different story so let’s
see what happens tomorrow with the strategy. We’ve done
well at the first two races so we can now hope to build on
that here. It’s going to be a tough afternoon but we
will do our best to score some more points.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/03) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 14th
Free Practice Session 3 20th Lap Time: 1m 35.144s (+2.601s)
Laps: 11
Q1 15th Lap Time: 1m 33.923s (+1.480s) Laps: 7
Q2 14th Lap Time: 1m 33.294s (+1.935s) Laps: 6
“This has been another difficult weekend for me so
far, just as it was in Malaysia. The car is quick enough but
I’ve had problems all weekend adapting it to suit me.
I’ve been battling with understeer both yesterday and
today and it’s been difficult to set it up for my needs.
I missed out on some of this morning’s practice session
due to a problem changing our rear suspension so qualifying
was a struggle. We certainly hope for a better race but it’s
hard to predict what we can achieve from so far back on the
grid. Hopefully I will be able to gain some places and it
will look better come tomorrow evening.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
“We have mixed emotions today. All weekend Ralf has
had some problems with the car and we have been struggling
to adapt the set up to suit him. Then during morning practice
while we were changing his rear suspension something went
wrong and one of his parts was damaged so it was impossible
to continue. So we did not really help him in his preparations.
During qualifying it was already looking better but still
Ralf did not make it out of Q2. Jarno fared better and he
had quite a gap compared to the car behind him in Q2 so it
seemed like we were the fourth quickest team today. Unfortunately
his last lap in Q3 was not trouble-free so our final positions
are slightly disappointing. Nonetheless overall, compared
to the pre-season test here where we appeared particularly
poor, it’s clear that we’ve made a very large
step forwards. At the beginning of the weekend the tyre specs
were pretty close together but as the track improved it is
clear that there is now quite a big gulf in performance. Both
in the first lap and over long runs the soft spec appeared
much better so that seems to be the picture for the season
so far. Now we must look to make up ground and chase another
strong result tomorrow.”
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