Canadian Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
QUEBEC TO LIFE
Panasonic Toyota Racing will line up with one car in the
top ten of the grid for tomorrow’s Canadian Grand Prix
after a mixed qualifying session. Following yesterday’s
front suspension problems, the team investigated the cause
overnight at the circuit and back in its Cologne factory.
The front upright that failed had been used for two years
without problems and no problem was found with the production
batch. But the engineers did identify that the set-up run
during yesterday afternoon’s practice could lead to
interference between the upright and the wishbone under extreme
circumstances. So the team reverted to a more usual set-up
today and as an extra precaution it asked the drivers to avoid
riding over the higher secondary kerb at turn 8. Despite missing
much of the weekend’s practice Jarno Trulli did well
to make it into Q3, taking 10th place on the grid. Ralf Schumacher
hit traffic during his fastest laps in Q1 and will line up
in 18th place tomorrow. Now Toyota will push to make the most
of these positions and come away with a strong result in tomorrow’s
race.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/06) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 10th
Free Practice Session 3 14th Lap Time: 1m 17.624s (+1.553s)
Laps: 17
Q1 11th Lap Time: 1m 17.324s (+0.856s) Laps: 8
Q2 10th Lap Time: 1m 16.600s (+1.114s) Laps: 6
Q3 10th Lap Time: 1m 17.747s (+2.040s) Laps: 12
“That was about as fast as I could have gone today
so I’m very happy with that, even if we would have liked
to be further forward. We’ve clearly been hampered by
all the problems we had yesterday and the limited amount of
running we had during practice. We lost a bit of time avoiding
the kerb at Turn 8 but given everything that has happened
we got away with a good result today. I was really pleased
with my lap to get through Q2. The race is another story but
this is an interesting circuit and a race where people can
drop out so you have to hang on and make the finish. There
will be a full house tomorrow so there will be a good atmosphere
and we will aim for a better result.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 18th
Free Practice Session 3 16th Lap Time: 1m 17.748s (+1.677s)
Laps: 13
Q1 18th Lap Time: 1m 17.634s (+1.166s) Laps: 8
“The whole weekend has been far from perfect for us.
Yesterday’s problems meant that we could not make the
most of practice. Still we expected more this afternoon but
the traffic meant that I just didn’t get a clear lap
and that’s all there was to it. For my last run four
cars came out of the box in front of me and they were in the
way. Then on the second lap I had another car in front of
me the whole way round. It’s a pity because there has
been potential this weekend and in yesterday’s first
practice session I was able to put in some reasonable lap
times. It will be a hard race but anything can happen at this
circuit so we’ll do what we can to gain some positions
tomorrow.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
“We have recovered from our lack of running in P2 yesterday
but still today was our worst performance of the season in
terms of pace. We have lost ground to our immediate rivals
like Renault, Red Bull and Williams. Jarno did well to break
into the top 10 but Ralf was unlucky. He had traffic in the
last outing which is obviously the most important one after
the red flag we had in Q1. It’s been a hard weekend
and practice was also disrupted by a red flag this morning.
Overnight we confirmed that yesterday’s suspension problem
was not caused by an issue with the production batch. But
in Turn 8 you have full steering lock just as you hit a big
rumble strip and with the set-up we were using these extreme
circumstances led to interference between the upright and
the wishbone. So today we reverted to a more classical set-up
window for camber, ride height and suspension stiffness. We
are totally confident these measures have resolved the issue
and made it safe to compete. But as an extra precaution we
asked our drivers to change their driving line to avoid riding
the highest part of the kerbs at that corner. Now we must
look to make the most out of these starting positions in the
race.”
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