Jarno Trulli admitted that he could not explain his poor qualifying performance after an encouraging morning practice session.
Although the Italian expected a hard weekend for his Toyota team, he still believed that the car was in reasonable shape after practice three.
However Trulli was eliminated in the first segment of qualifying after complaining of a mysterious lack of grip. He will start eighteenth in tomorrow’s race.
Trulli’s team-mate, Timo Glock, faired slightly better than the Italian. Glock managed to drag his Toyota into Q2, but had to settle for thirteenth place, having pushed as hard as he could.
Timo Glock – 13th: “That wasn’t a good result. We struggled a bit for pace this morning in the short third practice and in the end we were just a couple of tenths away from being in the top 10, which is a pity. I was having trouble in first qualifying but in the second session the car wasn’t too bad until the final corners when the rear tyres dropped off quite a lot. I was pushing to the maximum but the tyres didn’t really survive. So we have to start again from 13th as we did in Hungary and try to repeat what we did there by finding a way to get into the points. It will be a difficult task but I will do everything I can.”
Jarno Trulli – 18th: “I was expecting qualifying to be a bit difficult but not as bad as that. This morning the car felt reasonable even if we were a little short of grip. But it was much worse in qualifying; I really had no grip and there was nothing I could do. I just kept pushing and took a few more risks than normal but it didn’t work out. I don’t know why we struggled so much; it is a mystery to me. For the race tomorrow I can just do my best and see what happens.”
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis: “We can only be unhappy about that result as it is another extremely disappointing qualifying for us. In the last races we have shown that our race pace is better and gives us a chance to move up the field, although obviously that will be tough. Now we have to take a close look at all our options to see how we can fight back as we did in Hungary. Track conditions are changing continuously so we will look at the effect of that on the tyres for the race and try to make the best of it.”
