Turkish Grand Prix - Qualifying Round-Up
MIXED EMOTIONS
Panasonic Toyota Racing suffered mixed fortunes in qualifying
for the Turkish Grand Prix at the Istanbul Park, with Jarno
Trulli in 9th place and Ralf Schumacher in 18th. On another
hot and sunny day, the track temperature was at 50°C when
Q1 began. Jarno was able to get a clean lap and comfortably
reach the next session but Ralf encountered traffic on his
first flying laps. Both drivers improved their lap times in
the scramble at the very end of the session but unfortunately
Ralf missed out on Q2 by less than two 100ths of a second,
leaving him to start from 18th. In Q2 Jarno put in a good
late lap to make it through a tightly-contested session and
take his place in the top 10 shoot-out, where his final flying
lap was good enough for 9th. The team now hopes to make the
best of the situation with both drivers and claim as strong
a result as possible to mark Panasonic Toyota Racing’s
100th Grand Prix.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 9th
Free Practice Session 3 14th Lap Time: 1m 28.520s (+1.195s)
Laps: 21
Q1 11th Lap Time: 1m 28.318s (+1.024s) Laps: 7
Q2 9th Lap Time: 1m 27.801s (+0.960s) Laps: 6
Q3 9th Lap Time: 1m 28.740s (+1.411s) Laps: 11
“It is good to be in the top 10 again and I think it
was a positive day. It was hard work to get into the top 10
because I was struggling a bit with the handling of the car,
which did not seem to suit my driving style. I had a bit of
a problem under braking and couldn’t attack as I wanted
to. I think we did a good job to get 9th position but, of
course, it is always possible to improve, especially because
at this circuit overtaking is possible. For tomorrow we are
expecting a good result looking at our pace in the last few
races. I am hoping that from 9th on the grid I can have a
good result because I am looking forward to scoring points
again. I have high hopes for the race but I hope I do not
have the same problems as today.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 18th
Free Practice Session 3 13th Lap Time: 1m 28.481s (+1.156s)
Laps: 20
Q1 18th Lap Time: 1m 28.809s (+1.515s) Laps: 7
“That was a frustrating session and a disappointing
result. We had some problems on my first flying laps in Q1.
Twice my rear tyres locked and we don’t know why yet,
we will have to investigate. That was why my times were not
as good as we expected after my third place in practice yesterday.
Then we changed tyres and made an adjustment to the front
wing but I had a lot of oversteer. The car was nervous in
the middle sector and I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted
to. It was definitely a shame because we had the potential
to start much higher. We have to analyse what went wrong.
In the race anything is possible. Last year I started towards
the back and managed to finish 7th because it is possible
to overtake on this track. It is a long race so we will wait
and see.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
“We have some work to do to understand what has happened
since the end of P3 this morning because up to then we were
having a competitive weekend. Things started to go wrong when
we went to the option tyre at the end of P3 and did not gain
as much as the other teams. It stayed pretty much the same
in qualifying. We have one car in the top 10 thanks to a good
lap from Jarno but we are still far away from where we thought
we would be. We did not benefit as much as the others from
the improvement of the track with the option tyre. For Ralf
it was a different story. He could not get a clear lap in
Q1 and this combined with some balance issues and the fact
we were not as fast as we should have been caused his result.
Of course it will be difficult for him but last year here
he started 15th after an engine change, he had a collision
at the start and had to pit but still finished 7th. Hopefully
he can make up some positions because our race pace should
be good. Jarno is in a much better position and he has a sensible
strategy in terms of fuel load. We hope he can fight for points.”
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