Formula 1

Toro Rosso Left Disappointed by Turkey Qualifying

2 Mins read

There is an air of disappointment in the Toro Rosso garage this afternoon after Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari qualified just sixteenth and seventeenth respectively for tomorrow’s Turkish Grand Prix.

Buemi was particularly bewildered by his lack of pace in qualifying: “It's a bit hard to understand why we are so far off,” said the Swiss driver. “I would say that this morning, the track was quicker for us and I am not sure why I could not do the same lap time this afternoon as I managed in the morning. Maybe it's down to the drastic increase in temperature that we seem to have lost some grip.

“Overall, I am therefore disappointed with this qualifying session as I feel we could have done better and maybe been higher up on the grid, as one tenth of a second would have made a  big difference. Let's see what happens tomorrow, when apparently there is a chance it might rain and that could change everything.”

Alguersuari was a bit more philosophical about his grid position. Furthermore, by doing only one run in Q2, he has an extra set of soft tyres for the race, which could leave him with a big advantage over his team-mate. “All things considered, this is not such a bad result as at least we have saved a set of new tyres for the race which is a positive point,” said the Spaniard. “Maybe we could have improved the balance of the car on another set, as it changed a lot from this morning to the afternoon, which was down to the change in temperature and track condition.

“I did not do so much running in the morning which obviously did not help. But I must be positive and am looking forward to having a good race tomorrow as we have enough tyres to do well, so let's see what happens.”

Technical director Giorgio Ascanelli was also at a bit of a loss as to how Buemi could be tenth fastest this morning, and then only qualify in sixteenth. “I am not surprised at this result: the gaps have got smaller between the teams in our part of the pack,” he said. “However, I do not understand yet why we did not improve our times from this morning, although one can assume that the increased temperature has changed the balance of the cars.

“Jaime has had a difficult time so far here and we had to change his set-up dramatically from yesterday to today, when he improved a little but not enough and he lost time with his spin.

“Sebastien looked a bit better this morning, but there was already a hint that Williams had made some more progress. We came here with a few new parts, but it has not been enough. In Q2, we did not want to put all our eggs in one basket, so while Seb tried a second run to see if he could improve his performance, with Jaime we opted to save a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow's race. As things turned out, it seems Jaime has come off best in that particular decision.”

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David is an occasional contributer to the site on matters related to Formula 1. You can follow him on twitter at @Dr_Bean.
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