Formula 1 News

2009 Bahrain GP, qualifying: Toro Rosso quotes 

Giorgio Ascanelli: “We had troubles so far this weekend with a reliability problem, but we think we’ve fixed it now. In terms of this afternoon’s performance, we were simply not quick enough and that’s the end of it, although we got fairly close with Buemi, when you consider there were five cars within one and a half tenths, which means it comes down to mistakes. The picture here is pretty similar to what happened to us in Melbourne: both places are braking circuits and braking does not appear to be one of our strong points. Thankfully, it seems conditions should be cooler for tomorrow’s race.”

Sebastien Bourdais: “Losing track time this morning did not help. This afternoon, my first run was quite good, better than I thought and I was optimistic. But on my second run, we picked up a lot of understeer, which I corrected with the front wing for the final run. But suddenly the car went the other way, with massive oversteer. The car is extremely sensitive to the changes we make and we suffered with a lack of downforce and therefore grip. It is disappointing to finish so far down.”

Sebastien Buemi: “It should have been much better and I ought to have comfortably got through to Q2, but I made a mistake in the third sector. I’m disappointed with my performance as the car performed better than expected and with the sector times I was doing, maybe I should have been more cautious, just to make sure of getting into Q2. Track conditions were similar to this morning. Tomorrow, I still think we can have a good race, because this afternoon’s performance does not show what the car is capable of, so I am hopeful I can make up some places. How many is difficult to say. As for the tyres, it’s clear that the softer ones are those we will want to run the most in the race.”

source: Toro Rosso