Toyota surprised in Spain
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ByEurosport
Published 13/05/2006 at 16:23 GMT
Toyota were pleasantly surprised with their qualifying on Saturday in the Spanish Grand Prix with Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli placing a respective sixth and seventh on the starting grid. The Cologne-based team has a few minor creases to iron out but
2006 Spanish GP Toyota Schumacher
Image credit: Imago
"We didn't use any new tyres this morning and we had to go to the limit to make it through into Session 3,” said Schumacher who finished fourth in last year's Spanish GP. “The car was fine during all three sessions and we had no problems. We are confident in our strategy and hopeful for the race, where we will push for a good result."
Trulli is looking to score his first points this year and, despite a some slight problems in qualifying, is in a good position to do this. "I had problems with understeer and the car behaviour changed a lot during the sessions,” he said. “That meant I could not quite pull out the lap I would have liked at the end but we are still near the front.
"Because everyone knows this track so well, everyone runs at the absolute limit during this race weekend. We have worked hard to eliminate the problems with tyre graining that we had yesterday. So we hope that helps us tomorrow and we can put in a good race performance."
"Qualifying went better than we expected," said team general manager Pascal Vasselon. "This morning we decided to stay on used tyres so it was difficult to say exactly how we would fare on new rubber this afternoon.
The Bridgestone tyres were strong and the two drivers did a very good job. Now we can look forward to the race tomorrow. We have a sound strategy so let's see what happens."
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