Toro Rosso joined Lotus, Virgin and Hispania at the back of the grid in qualifying for the European GP...
Toro Rosso:
Sebastien Buemi: "I had a tough time in Q2. In the first session, I had a very good lap, lying P10 so everything was looking good as we were ahead of our main competitors. Then, in Q2, we waited quite a long time and, just as we were planning to go out on track, the red flag stopped the session and that changed our plan a bit. At the end, I found myself with a two tenths gap, losing the time in the final sector, which represented four places. I am disappointed, but I am still looking forward to tomorrow, because at least we have managed to save a few sets of tyres which will help us in the race."
Jaime Alguersuari: "That was a difficult qualifying for me, not helped by the fact I was unable to drive in Free Practice 2 yesterday, which meant I was lacking data on the tyres, which is critical here because there is a big lap time difference between the Prime and the Option. On my first lap, which was always going to produce the best performance from the tyres, I got big traffic so could not do a good time. I tried again on the second lap but I was getting a lot of oversteer as the tyres were not at their best anymore. It's a pity, as I would naturally want to do better, but at least we only used one set of tyres which leaves us in good shape for the race from a tyre point of view."
Team Lotus:
Heikki Kovalainen: "For me that was a pretty good performance. I found some more time on my second run and I definitely got as much as I could out of myself and the car, so even though the gap to the cars ahead isn't what we want it to be it's still satisfying to have delivered on that goal. We knew from the practice sessions that the time difference would be about what it turned out to be and despite the hard work put in right across the whole team we weren't able to close it up any more."
Jarno Trulli: "Traffic played a major role in my qualifying today. Everywhere I went it seemed as if there was someone right on the racing line, so to be honest I'm a bit disappointed. The car felt good and without the traffic I'm sure there was more pace in it, but even though we were all told not to back off in sector three there were other cars doing that and unfortunately that had a big influence on the times. However, now it's all about the race tomorrow and I think we can continue to show that the speed of the car in race trim is good. I want to make sure I have another good start and let's see what happens from there."
Virgin:
Timo Glock: "I'm very pleased with how things have gone so far this weekend and today my car crew did an amazing job, so thanks to them as everything has been very smooth. One little mistake we made was sending me out in a bit of traffic on my second run. Petrov blocked me into turn one which put me in the way of other cars which were on a fast lap and I had to get out of the way, so I didn't get the best chance on my second set of tyres and therefore set my best time on my third timed lap. Overall though a much better day. I was only 0.3s away from Trulli, my lap was good and hopefully we can have a good race with Lotus tomorrow."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "A bit of a disappointing end to the day. We've had a good weekend until qualifying, when something broke at the rear of the car. But at least it's better that it happens today rather than tomorrow so we still have the opportunity for a good race."
Hispania:
Tonio Liuzzi: "Yesterday we had some trouble with the balance of the car; the rear tyres were overheating and we were sliding coming out of slow corners but this morning we improved the balance. We knew it would be a difficult qualifying session especially because our main opponents made some steps forward but we have to look forward to tomorrow which will be a difficult race because the rear tyres are struggling in these hot conditions but tomorrow is another day and we will see how it goes.
"Obviously the competition is still on and we will be fighting until the last lap as usual. We have to try and understand the car better for the future and keep pushing for our target.
"It will be important to try and jump ahead of Timo at the start tomorrow and then keep the rear tyres alive. Even though tomorrow will be a difficult race, we will push to try and get the best result possible for our home fans. After the result in Montreal, people and the fans can believe in the team as we proved we are pushing night and day. It's a shame we're facing these tough conditions at a home grand prix but we will not give up until the end."
Narain Karthikeyan: "It was a difficult session. I just didn't catch up the time lost on the track yesterday with the gearbox issue. Braking stability on our car wasn't the best so I'm a little bit concerned about that but, apart from that, there aren't any major issues.
"The track is tricky and penalizes you a lot if you make a small mistake because all the corners lead into long straights so if you don't stop the car enough or if you lose the apex by a few inches, you get penalized all the way down the straight. There isn't much grip offline so you have to be pretty precise".
"I would have liked a few more laps perhaps but the important thing is that we've qualified and now have to take on the race tomorrow. It's my first time here so this is all experience I'm gaining and we should take it all as a positive. Now we need to try and improve the car and improve myself and see how we do".
