European Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
PLAYING THE WAITING GAME
Panasonic Toyota Racing is looking forward to a positive
home result in the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring
after Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher qualified in the top
10 today. Qualifying started under blue skies in warm conditions,
with track temperatures of 35°C, and both drivers easily
progressed beyond Q1, with Jarno 10th, one place ahead of
Ralf. Q2 saw both Toyotas in the top 10 but it was not without
drama for Jarno, who spun at the Veedol Chicane in the final
seconds. However, his earlier lap time was sufficient and
he lined up just behind Ralf in the pit lane as the drivers
waited for the green light in Q3. They had more waiting to
do when the red flags came out with five minutes remaining,
signalling a delay of over half an hour. When the session
finally resumed, Jarno set the 8th fastest time, with Ralf
in 9th, giving both drivers a platform from which to fight
for points in the race tomorrow.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 8th
Free Practice Session 3 13th Lap Time: 1m 32.936s (+1.540s)
Laps: 20
Q1 10th Lap Time: 1m 32.381s (+1.307s) Laps: 7
Q2 10th Lap Time: 1m 31.859s (+0.947s) Laps: 5
Q3 8th Lap Time: 1m 32.501s (+1.051s) Laps: 10
“It was a difficult qualifying session. We both did
a reasonably good job and I think we are in good shape for
the race. We will keep working hard but having two cars in
the top 10 is not too bad. The first session went well and
we had no trouble getting through. As you could see, I had
a spin on my last flying lap in Q2 at the chicane but luckily
it did not matter and we got into the top 10 again. The red
flag in Q3 didn’t really affect me. It is part of our
job – when I saw Lewis get out of the car, I could just
forget it straight away. Obviously there is quite a lot of
work to do to fight the cars ahead of us but from where we
are on the grid, we have a good chance of scoring points again,
so as usual I will push hard and try to get the best result
possible. It should be dry tomorrow but we are at the Nürburgring
so anything can happen!”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 9th
Free Practice Session 3 10th Lap Time: 1m 32.788s (+1.392s)
Laps: 21
Q1 11th Lap Time: 1m 32.446s (+1.372s) Laps: 6
Q2 9th Lap Time: 1m 31.843s (+0.931s) Laps: 6
Q3 9th Lap Time: 1m 32.570s (+1.120s) Laps: 10
“The session went quite well for me today and getting
into the top 10 is positive. We would have liked to have finished
a bit higher but eighth and ninth is still okay. We knew it
was going to be difficult to get both cars in the top 10 but
the car feels quite good and I am reasonably happy with today’s
performance. It felt like we had a decent balance throughout
the session and we had no problems with the car, so that was
good. I am happy to be on the clean side of the grid for the
start tomorrow – hopefully we can make a strong start
because there are cars in front of us which I think we can
catch. We will see how it goes but I am hopeful. The weekend
has gone well for us so far and now we will hopefully score
some points.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
“It was a bit of a disappointing qualifying session
because the weekend was developing pretty much like Silverstone
and we were expecting to fight for the top six. In fact both
Ralf and Jarno were able to fight for the top six because
they ended up within a few 100ths of a second of the cars
in front but still, we missed out. That is quite disappointing.
Otherwise the preparation to this session went really smoothly
for both drivers and as a consequence we are reasonably well
prepared for the race tomorrow. With the red flag delay late
in Q3, we managed the last five minutes to make sure both
cars could complete their laps without any traffic. We decided
we would go with a strategy which minimised the traffic risk
and everything went smoothly, except the final positions,
which we expected to be better.”
|
