It could have been better

By Andrew Cutler
June 16 2007

A laundry list of little issues kept the scuderia Toro Rosso drivers from turning in the kind of preformances today at Indianapolis that they have shown us in prior GP weekend Friday sessions in '07. There will be a third practice session on saturday morning, prior to the afternoon qualifying session.

Both Scott and Tonio had handling problems on a hot and sunny day that saw a few "near misses" as cars from nearly every team threatened to slide out of control in the corners at one point or another in the running. Tonio would have the more "productive" day of the two, posting a 1:13.907 - good for 14th - in the morning session and a 1:13.332 - good for 13th - in the afternoon. Scott's times would improve only slightly, going from a morning 1:13.990 - good for 15th - to an afternoon 1:13.712 - good for 18th.

Here are their post-session comments:

Vitantonio Liuzzi:
"It was a hard day and we struggled a bit with a few problems on the car, and in terms of balance it did not seem so easy to keep the car on the right line. We still need to find grip and the front of the car is washing out and I was also getting some snap oversteer. It will be a tough weekend, but tonight me and the engineers will work hard to find a compromise to improve for tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do. At least tyre choice seems very clear so that is something we can already cross off tomorrow's job list."

Scott Speed:
"Unfortunately we had several problems on the car today, with the steering wheel, with the TV monitor falling on my finger in the garage and at the end the wind speed indicator began to come loose. I also think the fact we are still waiting for our new gearbox will hurt us more at this circuit than at others. We are sliding around a lot on the infield, but I think that is the same for everyone and I don't think our balance is so far off what we want. Because of the various problems I had, I will be relying on Tonio's data to help with tyre choice."