Saturday Report – China is Upsetting for Toyota

Despite increasingly unfavorable conditions, the Toyota qualification could be described as a bit « upside down ». Indeed, we were used to seeing Trulli at the front and Ralf Schumacher at the back of the grid, but since the announcement of his departure from the Japanese team, the German seems transformed and it is Trulli who finds himself “at the back”.

A place on the 3rd row for Schumacher allows him to achieve his best performance with Toyota and it may not be over yet. With the conditions expected tomorrow, anything can happen and the German will aim for the podium.

Ralf Schumacher – 5th and 6th

« We are obviously very happy to have achieved this result in qualifying. The session went well overall, the car was efficient from start to finish even though it was not easy to drive with a lot of fuel on board during Q3. I am therefore happy to be in the top 6. However, the race will be difficult as rain is forecast. I’m sure some will have adjusted their strategy in light of what we saw in Fuji, but we won’t be sure until tomorrow. We weren’t very strong at the Japanese GP and so we hope to do better here. »

Jarno Trulli – 14th and 13th

The day turned out to be quite difficult, starting with the morning when I had trouble finding grip. From my first lap, I noticed that the car’s balance had changed compared to yesterday and I didn’t understand why. The more laps I did, the worse the situation got. The wind is stronger than yesterday, but the gusts don’t have too much impact on the settings. We lacked speed this afternoon and I could only pass the first session. If we can’t find the source of our problem tonight, I may choose to drive the backup car tomorrow. We are preparing for a wet track race, which will change the conditions significantly, but I will push as hard as I can to achieve a good result.

Pascal Vasselon – General Chassis Manager

« It’s a day full of contrasts. Ralf’s preparation went well throughout the weekend, and he finds himself where we generally expected him on the starting grid. The choice of tires was obvious for us after the free practice sessions, and everything went according to plan for Ralf. It’s a completely different story for Jarno. Both cars were set up in the same way under similar conditions, and the conclusions were heading in the right direction. But everything started going wrong this morning when he had trouble finding grip. It seems that other cars were affected by the same problem because some teams aren’t where we would have expected them on the starting grid. We need to analyze what happened. We are expecting rain tomorrow and have therefore acted accordingly in our preparation, optimizing the setup and strategy for these conditions. »