Timo Glock has admitted that his 13th place finish in the Turkish Grand Prix was not representative of
Toyota's potential, despite team-mate
Jarno Trulli also failing to score points in Istanbul.
A mistake in qualifying left the German on the back foot for the rest of the weekend, and a subsequent mechanical problem meant that he never recovered to a position where he could haul the TF108 into the top eight.
"We definitely had more potential than the result suggests," Glock sighed, "We found a good set-up for the car on Friday and I was very optimistic about making it through to the last part of qualifying and getting a strong grid position, but then things didn't work out for me. From then on, it was always going to be very difficult to score points.
"Unfortunately, I went out with the first set of tyres [in Q2], made a small mistake and didn't get the lap time. Then, with the second set of tyres, the car was really good, the lap was spot-on and I was three tenths up on my 1min 26.6secs lap from the first run, but, on the run to turn nine, a drive peg on the right front wheel broke and I had to back off. I think a top ten grid position was realistic, and I might have even made fifth or sixth in Q2 without my problem."
Restricted to the bottom of the Q2 timesheets, Glock faced a long afternoon unless there was a high rate of attrition at Istanbul Park and, although there were a couple of incidents at the first corner, he was unable to capitalise, only making up two places by the chequered flag.
"You have little choice but to fuel up the car for a long stint and see if you can use strategy to improve your position," he reflected, "It wasn't helped when I made a slow start and then had to avoid the accident between
Kazuki Nakajima and
Giancarlo Fisichella. In the first stint, I was behind
Rubens Barrichello and, even though I had better pace than the
Honda, I couldn't get past. That was pretty much my story for the whole race and, with so few retirements, 13th was the best I could do."
Despite his situation, however, Glock did manage to find a smile when a recovering
Heikki Kovalainen closed on him.
"I enjoyed that," he said, "He had a quicker car, but we were racing for position and I wasn't about to give up. He overtook me once and I got him back. It was a bit like the GP2 fight I had with
Lewis Hamilton at Istanbul - I wasn't going to make it easy for him!"
