Chinese Grand Prix – Qualifying Round-Up
TOP SCHUEY
Panasonic Toyota Racing will have one car on row three of
the grid for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix after a hard
afternoon of qualifying at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Ralf Schumacher successfully made it into Q3 and took 6th
place on the grid after a strong performance in his penultimate
race for Toyota. Both he and Jarno Trulli made it through
a highly competitive P1 but it was a fraught session with
ten cars covered by a quarter of a second. Q2 was also very
tight and while Ralf made it through, Jarno was less lucky
and missed out with the 13th fastest time. The circuit remained
dry today, despite strong winds at times, but rain is expected
for tomorrow as Shanghai braces itself for the fringes of
the approaching Typhoon Krosa. Now the team will work hard
overnight as it bids to make the most of these positions and
make progress in the race.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 6th
Free Practice Session 3 5th Lap Time: 1m 36.959s (+0.859s)
Laps: 18
Q1 11th Lap Time: 1m 37.135s (+1.443s) Laps: 7
Q2 9th Lap Time: 1m 26.709s (+1.328s) Laps: 6
Q3 6th Lap Time: 1m 38.013s (+2.105s) Laps: 10
“Obviously we are happy with what we achieved today
in qualifying. It was a decent session overall and the car
felt good throughout, even if it was a bit more difficult
to drive with the fuel on board in Q3. So I’m happy
to have made it into the top six. Nonetheless it will be a
tough race because there is heavy rain forecast so anything
is possible. I’m sure some people will have amended
their strategies given what we saw last week in Fuji but we’ll
find out tomorrow. We weren’t very strong in that race
so we will hope for better here. It’s really great to
see so many local fans in the stands here in Shanghai. I hope
they will come again for the race and I hope we will do a
good job for them.”
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04) PROVISIONAL
GRID: 13th
Free Practice Session 3 14th Lap Time: 1m 37.679s (+1.579s)
Laps: 20
Q1 15th Lap Time: 1m 37.209s (+1.517s) Laps: 7
Q2 13th Lap Time: 1m 36.959s (+1.578s) Laps: 6
“This has been a difficult day which started this morning
when I had a problem finding grip in the car. Straight from
the first lap I noticed the balance had changed compared to
yesterday and I just couldn’t understand how. The more
laps I did the worse it seemed to get. The wind is stronger
today but that didn’t really affect things. So this
afternoon I was really short of pace and I was just able to
make it through the first session but that was it. If we cannot
find out the cause of the problem tonight I may have to switch
to the T-car tomorrow. Of course we are expecting another
wet race so that will have a massive effect but I will go
out there and push as hard as ever to bring home a result.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis
“It was quite a contrast today. Ralf’s preparations
have gone well all weekend and he is pretty much where we
expected to be on the grid. Following the practice sessions,
the conclusions in terms of tyre choice and set-up were very
clear. So for Ralf I would say that everything has gone according
to plan so far. For Jarno it’s a different story. Yesterday
the two cars were in similar conditions with similar conclusions
and a similar direction. But it started to go wrong for him
this morning and he was really struggling to find tyre grip.
It seems that other cars may have faced the same problem because
some teams are not where we would expect them to be on the
grid. But now we will have more work to do to analyse why
that has happened. For tomorrow we clearly expect a wet race
so we have tuned our preparations, set-up work and strategy
to optimise everything for that. Now we will push hard for
a good finish in the race.”
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