Belgian GP: Toyota qualifying report

Jarno Trulli (Car 11, Chassis TF108-05)
Summary: Low track temperatures caused tyre warm-up problems and he dropped out of the top 10 in Q2 in the final seconds.
PROVISIONAL GRID: 11th

Free Practice Session 3 11th
Best Lap Time: 1m 49.057s (+1.181s) Laps: 16

Q1 13th Best Lap Time: 1m 47.400s (+0.623s) Laps: 7
Q2 11th Best Lap Time: 1m 46.949s (+0.912s) Laps: 6

"We knew we would be struggling a bit today given these low temperatures and it was a difficult qualifying for us - this has been the trend of the weekend so far unfortunately. It was very hard to get the temperature into the tyres in order to make them work properly so it is then not easy to judge the car balance. As well as that I am on the second race with my engine and that is particularly important here because you have the long straights. Normally on the second race the engine loses a little bit of power and here this makes a difference to the lap time. But tomorrow is another day and I will do my best. The only positive point is that we can choose our strategy just before the race."

Timo Glock (Car 12, Chassis TF108-06)
Summary: Also suffered warm-up problems, leaving him to start from the seventh row.
PROVISIONAL GRID: 13th

Free Practice Session 3 15th
Best Lap Time: 1m 49.535s (+1.659s) Laps: 18

Q1 12th Best Lap Time: 1m 47.359s (+0.582s) Laps: 7
Q2 13th Best Lap Time: 1m 46.995s (+0.958s) Laps: 6

"It was quite a difficult session for me today. In practice we were struggling a bit to bring the tyres to the right temperature and we suffered from this again in qualifying. It was particularly hard to get the heat into the tyres on my first flying lap, so we were not able to get the result we wanted. We are not getting the performance out of the tyres in these conditions and it is difficult to get a feeling for the car when that happens. It was really tricky to get it right today and it's hard to see it changing dramatically tomorrow; maybe the temperature rises a bit or it rains, you never know here. It would be good for me if it was wet because I like those conditions and our car performs well if there is a bit of rain. We will have to wait and see but whatever happens we will push as hard as we can to achieve the best possible result."

Pascal Vasselon - Senior General Manager Chassis

"This was one of our worst qualifying results this season and it means that obviously we got something wrong in our preparation work. We will be busy tonight and tomorrow morning trying to understand what has happened here. Qualifying in 11th and 13th is obviously not what we expected and it is not a satisfying result. From a tyre point of view, not surprisingly the medium and hard compounds are not really suitable for these conditions and we had a difficult time running around on quite a cold track. However that is the same for everyone and it is for us to handle the situation. On the positive side the tyre choice itself for the race is pretty clear."

-credit: toyota