Toro Rosso Ferrari - Chinese GP - Qualifying

Sebastien Buemi made his intentions clear when he banged in the eighth fastest time in the first round of qualifying in the clearly much-improves Toro Rosso Ferrari package. The Swiss Rookie went on to make it through the second round of qualifying and was then forced to revert to the harder prime tyre to qualify tenth for his third Grand Prix. Team-mate Sebastien Bourdais admitted to a mistake on his crucial run and starts 15th after Timo Glock takes his grid position penalty.

Sebastien Buemi
“I am really happy to be in Q3, as it’s more than I had expected. I don’t think I could have got any higher up the order. On low fuel, the car was very good, but we didn’t have any new Options left for Q3, so I had to do three flying laps on the Prime, so considering that, we can be satisfied with this. The team worked really well, doing a fantastic job to improve the car a lot since the start of the season and today it worked very well. Now, I am very much looking forward to tomorrow’s race."

Sebastien Bourdais
“I made a mistake, it’s as simple as that. I tried to optimise my line to take Turn 8, but I cut the apex too much and got on the marbles and the dirt on the left side and so the car never really turned in.

Because of the dirt on the tyres, the next few corners were a disaster, losing me around half a second. Yesterday had been very promising but for whatever reason, today it didn’t work out. When you see my team-mate did two great laps, you can understand that the potential is there. Tomorrow, I will see what I can do, and even if it’s hard to make up places here, I’ll keep pushing.”

Giorgio Ascanelli
“It’s fair to say we are learning a lot about the car and we must congratulate Buemi for getting into Q3 at only his third attempt. He is still on a very steep learning curve and he didn’t get it quite right in Q2. We had to use all our Option tyres in the first two sessions, to make sure of getting into Q3. I also want to thank Red Bull Technology, because the car is clearly well born. I think Red Bull Racing deserve their pole and I’m cheering for them.”