Giorgio Ascanelli is hopeful that Toro Rosso will have better race pace in tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix, and is banking on a race of attrition to help his team score some points.
Ascanelli, technical director of the Faenza-based outfit, claimed to be happy with the performance of his two drivers in qualifying, after the team overcame a difficult day of practice on Friday.
Although Jaime Alguersuari did make it into Q2, and starts eighteenth, Sebastien Buemi managed a solid fifteenth.
Sebastien Buemi (15th): “It’s pretty much what we expected and we appear to be fighting with Petrov, the Saubers and the Williams. As always I felt I could have done better, but not by much, maybe two tenths. Tomorrow for the first race, I would hope to finish in the points, which this year means getting to tenth. That would involve moving up five places, which is not an impossible task, given that it will be a long race and anything could happen.”
Jaime Alguersuari (18th): “We hoped to be in Q2 but I made a mistake on my fastest lap on the soft tyres. The grip level was quite low, I was pushing hard and it caught me out, going too fast into a turn. There is room for improvement of course and I hope I can have a good race tomorrow and move up the order a bit, but it looks like it will be tough to score points. We will have to do better next time.”
Giorgio Ascanelli: “I am disappointed with the fact we were not able to give Sebastien any running yesterday, but today, I am actually quite happy that we did better than seventeenth and eighteenth, which is what I had expected. Jaime had traffic and made a mistake, which can happen, so he is capable of better. With only limited running in free practice, Seb didn’t get the best out of himself and the car, but I am happy with what both drivers did. There is no reason to expect a better race pace, but it will be a tough afternoon during which I hope we will be sustained by our reliability.”
