Bourdais continues to believe in it

As the first qualifying practice sessions approach, revealing everyone's level, Sébastien Bourdais affirms that his start to the season will be difficult, that the current configuration of his Toro Rosso will only allow him to hope to get into the points, logically.

Published on 26/03/2009 à 21:42

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Indeed, knowing very little about the behavior of the new STR4, following winter tests undertaken too late, the French driver knows that he must accumulate the kilometers to get to know his machine, while the competition multiplied the tests.

“Very regularly, almost every 15 days, each team develops an aerodynamic development allowing it to gain between five tenths and one second per lap. At this rate, given that we are still a little behind schedule due to the late development of the car, we will have difficulty being competitive. »

“We will have to be patient in the first half of the season, hoping that things calm down a little in terms of development among the competition. Unfortunately, the recent implementation of this new technical regulation means that it is still possible today to find exploitable flaws in it, proof of this is with the affair of the rear diffusers which some consider illegal. »

“Given our situation today, if we find ourselves well qualified on Saturday, it will mean either that we will have found something that we did not expect, or that the others will have made a mistake somewhere. Judging from the few days of testing that we were able to carry out, it doesn't look easy. The STR4 is a good car for sure, but we have fallen too far behind in its development and we are working hard to try to correct that.

To hear these statements, one might believe that the Manceau is dejected by the lack of performance of his machine, but this is not the case. Bourdais believes that the situation is much better than the one he found himself in a year earlier, and is even a bit optimistic.

“It's no worse than last year, when we started with the old car. At that moment, we knew that when we got to Q2, we had done a good job. Currently, we know that we have a car that will evolve, that everything should go in the right direction. We just need to work in the best possible way and understand as best as possible how to operate our machine. With this in mind, the free trials will prove very important for us. But I remain convinced that the situation will evolve in the right direction. »