August 27 2011
Jaime Alguersuari will start the Belgian GP from 6th place, his best ever result in qualifying. The Spaniard made the most out of his car under very difficult conditions during the sixty-minute session, and has also given Toro Rosso their best starting position since 2008.
Without rain, but still on a wet track, started Q1. All the drivers put on a set of intermediates and filled their tanks with more gasoline than usual. The challenge? Setting a time before the expected first rain appearance, as Andrea Landi, Alguersuari's track engineer reminded his pupil in the out-lap. The Spaniard clocked nine laps in Q1, during which he progressively improved his times to set the eventual 2'05.419 that gave him the tenth place.
The second session was a nerves test for everybody. Jaime Alguersuari repeated the Q1 strategy, and idled his STR6 at the end of the pit lane awaiting the green light before anyone else to avoid both traffic and "spray." Under again another shower, the Catalan set two first timed laps (2'10.471 and 2'09.017), before returning to his box after seing the marshalls deploying the red flag following Adrian Sutil's accident at Eau Rouge.
At the restart, Jaime started again in the front of the pack, ready to face the final attack. Racing on a track that was improving lap after lap, Jaime opened fire with a good 2'07.008, which then he lowered to 2'05.419. He was P10 by then. But the monitor showed many green sectors, and that meant that he would have to give everything on a single lap. And in a great display of talent, he improved to the 2'04.561 that gave him the ninth spot and a ticket to Q3 for the second time in his career (the first one was in China 2011).
In Q3 the sun made his first appearance and the 10 survivors were able to use their first set of soft tires. Jaime waited for some minutes in his box before rushing out to the track to start setting his first marks. With just nine laps on dry tarmac throughout the weekend (none of them, by the way, on soft rubber), the challenge was huge.
Jaime set a 1'55.573 time for a start, which he progressively lowered to 1'52.627, 1'51.232 and the eventual 1'50.773, which gave him a surprising sixth place. This is the best result of his career and the best of a Toro Rosso since 2008.
At the end of the session, Alguersuari was happy: "We certainly did not expect to be P6, but these conditions helped our car. Since Friday we have had great feelings with the car, and I think that we can be sure that we have taken a step forward. I am very happy for the team. Now, let's fight to score some more points tomorrow".
The Belgian Grand Prix starts tomorrow at 2 PM (CET).
Credit: Jaime Alguersuari (www.jalguersuari.com)
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