Saturday Report – For Toyota, Trulli is still the leader

After a tough afternoon of qualifying at the Autodrome Jose Carlos Pace, Toyota will have a car on the 4th row of the starting grid for the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Jarno Trulli chose to drive with the spare car and reaped the rewards by qualifying for Q3 for the 13th time this year. He will start from the 8th position on the grid. Ralf Schumacher faced more difficulties in his final qualifying with Toyota and will have to start from the 15th place.

Jarno Trulli – 5th and 8th

« I must first thank the team for their superb work. We switched to the reserve car because I wasn’t satisfied after yesterday’s testing. It was a big effort for the team and it’s good that they are rewarded with this result. The car behaved well and we were able to improve its settings. I’m 8th in the three qualifying phases and will start from this position tomorrow. The race will be interesting as tire management will be essential in the final result. It will be important to be lucky with the tires, to avoid too much graining. We will do our best to try to boost the team as we head into the winter. »

Ralf Schumacher – 14th and 15th

« I didn’t have any particular problem in Q2. The traffic was acceptable and the car performed quite well. I just couldn’t put everything together this time, which is unfortunate, but that’s how it goes sometimes. It’s not an ideal position to start the race, but we’ll see what we can do. The positive side is that overtaking is possible here, so anything is possible in the race. »

Pascal Vasselon – General Manager Chassis

« When the grid is this tight, you always have regrets to harbor; one more or less lap in the strategy makes the difference. But this result is not bad considering what we planned for tire management during the race. This last point will obviously be the main topic this weekend because today we experienced exceptional conditions with both graining and blistering on the same cars. Usually, it’s one or the other, but this morning we had to deal with both! Therefore, the race will be interesting from this point of view, and we should witness different approaches to the situation. Jarno did a good job in Q3, and his 8th place is a decent result. Ralf had trouble putting together the best sectors in Q2. But we still have an evening to think about his race strategy. »

According to Toyota F1