Sebastien Bourdais seems to be making a good transition from the US Champ Car scene to Formula One. Ahead of his third start with Toro Rosso Ferrari, the Frenchman put in a strong performance to make it into the second round of qualifying. He lines up 15th while Sebastian Vettel was a frustrated 19th.

Sebastien Bourdais“My first time in Q2. We came close before and now we have made it. The cars we are racing against are in similar positions, so we could not really expect much more. I had hoped to be a contender for twelfth if we’d had a perfect qualifying but clearly the gap is too big. I think we did the best with what we had and the team worked well, worked really hard. We can take satisfaction from that, keep on working and wait for the new car. In race trim yesterday, the car was quite good over two long runs and its pace was fairly consistent. If we get to the finish and others have problems, maybe we can aim to be in the points.”

Sebastian Vettel“I am disappointed not to have got further than Q1.  It has been difficult all weekend and yesterday we struggled to set up the car and we still haven’t found the right set up. That made qualifying difficult as you need everything to be right on the car to produce one quick flying lap. We were not strong enough. Of course, it is partly down to me as I drive the car! Struggling with the set-up, I felt it was more a case of the car driving me than me driving the car.”

Giorgio Ascanelli“I am happy that Sebastien made his Q2 debut and pleased that he is not the last man in Q2. I am also pleased that we have done a lot of laps with both cars. I’d say our performance level is what it is on the screen.”

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