Saturday: Toyota is not at the top, but is confident in its strategy

Just two weeks ago, in Bahrain, the Japanese team Toyota secured the third pole position in its history, with Trulli. Unfortunately, the victory slipped away from them, and this time neither of the two white and red drivers will be starting from the front row. Jarno Trulli will start 7th, behind his teammate, Timo Glock who will be in 6th place.

Like many teams, Toyota has several new developments in Barcelona and believes it has made progress; progress, however, insufficient to return once again to the front lines. The car remains fast, but the balance could be better. The strategy, however, should allow the drivers to gain several places tomorrow; very loaded with fuel. Confidence is high.

Jarno Trulli – 6th and 7th:

« It was a fairly good and interesting qualifying session for me today, especially in Q1 and Q2 where I ran with little fuel and therefore less downforce. But we made it to Q3 and that’s the main thing. In Q3, in fact, I had more fuel and more grip, and the car responded much better, allowing me to push the TF109 to the maximum. At the end of the session, I did everything I could to achieve a very good lap and I’m quite satisfied with it. I think starting 7th will be interesting, especially with the fuel load we have on board. I’m quite optimistic, as our strategy is indeed one of the best. »

Timo Glock – 8th and 6th:

I am reasonably satisfied with starting from the top 6. Especially since the practice this morning didn’t go as planned. I was in doubt this morning because of the difficult balance to find, but we worked well, and being sixth is really not bad, we can be happy!

Overall, we thought we would be a bit better this weekend, but a lot of teams have made progress here and everyone is very close. I’ve scored points in every race so far and starting from the third row will give me a good opportunity to continue like this. Finishing on the podium won’t be easy, but I’m going to push hard to make it happen tomorrow in the race!

Pascal Vasselon – Chassis Manager:

« Everything went well during the qualifications and we are quite satisfied to have both cars in the top 8. It was a busy weekend with the new aero elements we had. We evaluated them in practice and took the best for the qualifications and therefore the race. At first glance, the qualification result is not that fantastic. But I think we can be optimistic. We know that the strategy will matter a lot tomorrow and overall everyone will be debating two or three stops.