Despite stopping out on track in the dying seconds of segment one, Jaime Alguersuari was happy to post a reasonable time during his first ever qualifying session. The young Spaniard, who starts twentieth in tomorrow’s Grand Prix, now hopes for a solid race performance to top off his debut weekend.
Alguersuari’s team mate, Sebastien Buemi, put in a very strong shift in his Toro Rosso, to claim the best qualifying position of his career, in eleventh.
Sebastien Buemi – 11th: “Finishing eleventh, one tenth off P10 shows we have made progress, a very big step forward since the last race. It was a good qualifying for us, even if it is frustrating to finish eleventh because you want Q3. But it means we can run whatever fuel load we want for the race and I think we will be in good shape for tomorrow.”
Jaime Alguersuari – 20th: “Finishing qualifying with a failure is never good – I had a problem with the throttle control system – but we have to be content because I didn’t make any mistakes so far this weekend. On my first two sets of tyres I did a good job. As for the race, I am really looking forward to it and I will be happy if I finish.”
Giorgio Ascanelli: “First of all, the thoughts of everyone at Toro Rosso are with Felipe Massa at this time. As for our performance, obviously, the development that was introduced by Red Bull Racing at the British Grand Prix, has partly been used on our cars here for the first time. It is not yet the complete package and it has proved very effective, as can be seen by Sebastien’s performance.
“I have to congratulate Jaime on a good job without doing anything silly. His stop was due to a problem caused by the introduction of the new hydraulic system, required to run the new modifications. We still have a long way to go with this car, but I think we can have a good race. Eleventh on the grid better than tenth? If it’s a choice between an egg today or a chicken tomorrow, I would always take the egg!”
