Sebastien Buemi had an eventful day of Friday practice at the Nürburgring after bouncing heavily across a gravel trap at the closing stages of the morning session and then failing to set a time in the afternoon session thanks to an engine misfire.
“I had [the] misfire from early on in the morning session, but we continued to run anyway,” he explained. “Then in the afternoon it got worse and the mechanics had to strip down the car to trace the cause of it, so I could not run in FP2.
“In the morning session, I was able to evaluate the experimental Soft compound tyres that Pirelli supplied us here. However, despite the lack of laps, I still believe we can move forward tomorrow, when there is also a chance the weather could be different with the threat of rain.
“So, overnight we have to fix the car then decide on what set-up to run if it is wet and despite today's difficulties, I still believe we can have a competitive weekend.”
Toro Rosso team-mate Jaime Alguersuari had, by comparison, a relatively quiet day. He finished it P15 on the timesheets and is optimistic that he can continue his run of points finishes here at the German Grand Prix.
“This was a good test day for us and I completed a lot of laps,” said the Spaniard. “We had a busy programme, trying some things for the future and also various different set-up scenarios. I did a long run on the Option tyre this afternoon and we are still looking better in race trim than in the qualifying simulation. Based on this, I would say we have the possibility to score some more points on Sunday, although the weather is looking uncertain.
“Tomorrow morning we can look to improve the car a bit more for the race and in the afternoon, qualifying will again be the limiting factor for us, because it will be very difficult to get ahead of our closest opponents, but I am very motivated for the race.”
