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Qualifying report
By Catherine Black
October 11 2008
Round sixteen qualifying for the Japnese Grand Prix at Fuji Speedway today saw both Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers qualifying in the top ten, as the team hopes to continue its run of recent points finishes throughout the second half of the 2008 Formula One season.

Qualifying session 1 saw both Toro Rosso’s make it safely through the session, with Vettel 11th fastest with a time of 1:18.559, with Bourdais right behind him, 12th fastest with a time of 1:18.593. Timo Glock topped the session for Toyota with a time of 1:17.945, however the session was not without casualties, with BMW-Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld being the big name who was knocked out. 

Qualifying session 2 was a much closer battle to make it through to qualifying session 3. Vettel was comfortably through Qualifying 2, with the 6th fastest time of 1:17.714, whilst Bourdais narrowly made it through the session, only making it into the top 10 by 8 hundredths of a second, with the time of 1m18.102s. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa topped the session with a time of 1:17.287 

With race fuel on board, there was nothing either of the Toro Rosso drivers could do about the faster cars infront of them, and as a result, Vettel qualified in 9th place with a time of 1:19.638, and Bourdais qualified in 10th place with a time of 1:20.167. Mclaren’s Lewis Hamilton topped the session, and took his 6th pole position of the session with a time of 1:18.404, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen joining him on the front row of the grid. 

Team Quotes:

Sebastian Vettel - 9th: "At the start of qualifying the track was still quite green because of the rain, but we made it to Q3 again which is good. Then in the final part, I was struggling a bit with the heavier car, as it did not feel as good as before and I made a couple of small mistakes. "But the gap to the next fastest was a bit too big. It will be a tough race on the cars and especially the tyres, so I think the key to success will be to keep the tyres in good shape. I hope our strategy turns out to be a good one."

Sebastien Bourdais - 10th: "It was a good qualifying and I'm happy to be close to Sebastian on a track with a lot of corner entries on the brakes which is where I usually struggle with the rear end of the car, so I had to hold back a bit. I think the car has improved a bit after the team found a couple of things on the aero side which has helped. I think we are in good shape for the race."

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): "Having both cars in Q3 indicates that we put together a strong qualifying performance. Both drivers have done a very good job, closely matched throughout the weekend. Tomorrow, we will find out what our competitors have done in terms of fuel loads, but certainly, we are happy with our race trim and are looking to have a strong race."

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