Zoom Bourdais a solid ninth in Spa qualifying

Sebastien Bourdais topped the timesheets in the first round of qualifying in his Toro Rosso with the fastest lap of the weekend (at the time) at the super-fast Spa Francorchamps circuit. Bourdais went on to qualify ninth for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel settled for tenth position having made it into the final round of qualifying, opting to complete just a single run and conserve fuel and tyres for race day.

Sebastien Bourdais
“A qualifying session when I can get out of the car and say that I drove well and that the team, as usual did a good job. The car worked well even if we couldn’t mix it too much with those ahead of us. But let’s see what strategies the others are on in terms of fuel loads tomorrow. A couple of tenths is all that separated us from sixth or seventh. It’s beginning to come together and it’s been a good weekend so far. I feel this track and its corners suit me better. It was nice to see my name at the top of a time sheet in Q1. It’s been a long time!”

Sebastian Vettel
“I’m quite happy and we can be satisfied to get both cars in Q3, which we did not expect at this track. It was a strong qualifying performance. I was struggling a bit on those sections where the driver doesn’t have to do much. I could not find the pace my team-mate had. I messed up my last run a bit but it didn’t affect the result in the end. I think we have a good strategy for both cars so let’s see what happens. At the moment, I’m starting on the dirty side of the track but if it rains for the race it becomes the clean side.”

Giorgio Ascanelli
“Better than expected, as I’d predicted tenth and 13th. It is the second race in a row that we get both cars into Q3 and they have run reliably. Clearly our guys are on two different strategies, so Vettel didn’t get the full potential out of the car as he is clearly heavier and he didn’t have the benefit of a first sighting run in Q3. Anything can happen at this track and for the race we wanted to have our cars positioned differently: the fastest driver and today that was Bourdais, gets the fastest strategy in Q3. Overall, it was a strong performance.”

E.A. © CAPSIS International