Toro Rosso were ‘reasonably satisfied’ after qualifying fourteenth and sixteenth for tomorrow’s Turkish Grand Prix, with Sebastien Buemi out-qualifying Jaime Alguersuari for the fourth time in seven races.
Buemi, however, was disappointed with his seventh row grid slot, instead hoping to have qualified on the fringes of the top ten. “I am not particularly happy, because again today, Q3 was out of our reach,” said the Swiss driver.
“I expected a bit more than fourteenth place, as in the morning we were ahead of the Saubers, so I was hoping to qualify eleventh, but they got ahead of us this afternoon.
“The track changed a lot from yesterday afternoon to this morning, but not so much in between today's two sessions. It will be a tough race so let's wait and see what we can do.
“In free practice, our pace over a long run was good, which is a positive sign, however, overtaking is not so easy here.”
Jaime Alguersuari blamed a slow-moving Sauber for hampering his qualifying, and also revealed a slight mishap that befell him at the end of his session: “I think there was more potential to do better, especially on my last lap, but I was held up by De La Rosa at Turn 7 who was on the outside of the corner which meant I had to change my line, which cost me a couple of tenths.
“However, it was a valuable experience as I am still not a hundred percent tuned into the tyres and I need to learn more. I had to park the car at the side of the track at the end of Q2 because I decided to do one more lap than planned on my final run, when I thought I could improve my time.”
Giorgio Ascanelli, the Toro Rosso technical director, said the team had the potential to qualify higher-up the grid today: “We can be reasonably satisfied, because we have worked hard over the past couple of weeks and our car has progressed. However, it was clear this afternoon that Sauber has also worked hard and progressed more than us.
“The cars ran reliably and generally, we have done a good job, but we did not get the most out of our package this afternoon, because we treated yesterday's free practice more like a test session, to evaluate some new parts, rather than optimising the car to suit the characteristics of this track.
“Therefore we did not get everything right today and the verdict of the qualifying time sheet is the correct one in our case.”
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