STR's Buemi left hoping for wet weekend

Date published : 10 Jul 2009 - 16:05:52

Sebastien Buemi is already hoping the German Grand Prix turns into a wet weekend after Toro Rosso struggled to get a competitive lap time out of its STR4 throughout Friday practice. With the team having languished towards the bottom of the grid for a number of races, that situation continued on the opening day at the Nurburgring with neither driver getting higher than 16th all day. Buemi, who clocked the 17th and 18th quickest times respectively, says while the team at least managed to complete its planned programme in the tricky conditions, trying to find a strong set-up proved more difficult and says it will now try something different on Saturday come rain or shine. Even though our times don t look great, we did a good job today in terms of testing everything we wanted to try and so we have a clear picture of what the car is doing and why, he said. Depending on whether it is wet or not tomorrow, we will go in a different direction to try and be more competitive. The rain cost us a bit of a track time, but it didn t affect our programme, so we can be happy with the work and less so with the actual result. And highlighting the state of its current situation, he admitted: I have to say, I hope it rains as I think we would be more competitive in those conditions. Team-mate Sebastien Bourdais expressed similar frustration with the car s continuing lack of competitiveness despite the fact the team tried out different set-up options on both cars. The Frenchman whose start to the weekend on Thursday was dogged by rumours that he needs a strong performance in Germany to save his drive says he struggled for grip in the chilly conditions all day. The main difficulty today was the low track temperatures which meant the tyres had very little grip, Bourdais said after slumping to 19th in the afternoon. We made several changes to the set-up, including some to the rear ride height, but I don t think we went in the right direction. That meant I struggled with that and the wind also made life difficult in terms of braking stability with a strong tailwind at the chicane meaning it was hard to stop the car. Seb and I tried quite different set-ups on the car, but, in the end, they both seemed to produce similar lap times.