By Andrew Cutler
October 13 2012

There had to have been a few minutes there, between the first and second qualifying sessions for tomorrow's Korean GP, when the Scuderia Toro Rosso folks entertained the idea that they could sneak at least one of their cars through into the third round. After all, when Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne were staring down the prospect of elmination in the closing minutes of Q1, both drivers fought back with authority, laying down the sixth and seventh fastest times for the session.  

Q2, sadly, would prove to be another story.

For Daniel Ricciardo, the session would end with his car parked just off of the track, the victim of a mechanical issue. The team has since checked everything over, and it appears to be a driveshaft problem. Because they had to open up the gearbox, Ricciardo is likely looking at a five grid spot penalty for the race, which would move him back from his original 16th spot to the 21st starting position.

For Jean-Eric Vergne, it was a simple case of driver error, which not only messed up his chances, but nearly shunted him off of the track. He was slowest of the Q2 cars, and will start 17th (or 16th, if Ricciardo is indeed moved back).

Here are the team's post-qualy comments:

Daniel Ricciardo (16th):

“In Q2, we were only doing two runs of one flying lap each and on my last one, I simply lost drive coming out of Turn 12, feeling as if the car was in neutral and I couldn’t find any gears. I could not bring the car back to the pits and had to abort the run at the side of the track. It was a shame, because Q1 went very well and I was able to post a competitive time. I don’t know if I could have eventually got into Q3, but whatever the result, this has been a missed opportunity, although that’s part of the game in motor racing. Hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow.”

Jean-Eric Vergne (17th):

“The performance looked very good and competitive this afternoon, but unfortunately I tried to take the final corner flat on my very last run, but I got it wrong and ruined my lap, nearly losing the car, so I am angry with myself for that. The step up in performance compared to yesterday came partly from improving the car overnight and again since FP3 and partly from myself, in the way I was driving. Of course I will be trying to get a good start tomorrow and hope that I can then work my way into a points scoring position by the end of the race.”

Laurent Mekies, Chief Engineer:

“This was a disappointing qualifying for us, as we had picked up quite a bit of pace compared to yesterday, which could be seen from our lap times in Q1. It reflected a good improvement from everyone, especially the two drivers, who both posted good lap times in Q1. So, it was looking quite promising, but unfortunately in Q2, Daniel had to park at the side of the track, reporting over the radio that he had no drive. Our priority for this afternoon will be to investigate and fix the problem. As for Jean-Eric, right at the end of his final quick lap, he pushed a little too hard and made a mistake. Looking to tomorrow, even if we did not get the grid positions we might have hoped for, the pace we showed in Q1 is still in the car, therefore we can expect to have a good race and aspire to fight through into the points as we have done in recent races.”