Toro Rosso' lacklustre recent run of form continued into the qualifying session at Silverstone this afternoon for tomorrow's British Grand Prix with Sebastien Bourdais, fresh from his podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours last weekend, the quicker of the two drivers albeit in only seventeenth place. Bourdais, a former triple ChampCar title winner, was one of the Peugeot factory drivers who raced to a 1-2 finish in the French endurance classic last weekend. His Toro Rosso team mate Sebastien Buemi suffered mechanical misfortunes twice today and wound up dead last as neither driver made it close to getting out of opening Q1 session in the Ferrari-powered STR4 cars.

Sebastien Bourdais

“I think we improved the car by two or three tenths compared to Turkey, but so did the others. Our car is much nicer to drive and a bit quicker. I felt comfortable inside the cockpit and I think I had the pace to make it into Q2, but the red flag came at just the wrong time for me. It’s a real shame. This is an awesome track and when you get the car set up right, a qualifying lap is an unbelievable feeling.”

Sebastien Buemi

“It’s been a bad weekend so far, with a few small problems and if you don’t get many clean laps without any trouble, then when you go into qualifying, you really pay the price. It is disappointing that I couldn’t use the quick-shift on the gearbox in qualifying, which cost me at least three tenths and that is a big difference here. But that’s racing and now we will have to see what we can do tomorrow. It will be a difficult race whatever happens.”