Bourdais worried about qualifying pace

The Toro Rosso driver, who will make his Formula One debut this season after taking four consecutive Champ Car World Series titles, reckons he will be on the pace in the races, but still has work to do on qualifying.

"You need to qualify well, and I think that's my weakness right now," Bourdais told reporters after testing at Jerez.

"On long runs I'm quite competitive. On first lap performance it's a bit harder."

He said that start practice had taken precedence over qualifying simulations at Jerez as the teams adapted to the loss of drivers aids for 2008.

"Obviously here we were doing launches when we were putting new tyres on the car," Bourdais said. "The front tyres go down, the rear tyres are warm because you did a burn-out, so it's a bit hard to get a feeling.

"The qualifying simulation itself was quite reasonable last time we were here. But we'll see. I need to learn everything, so we'll just take it as it comes."

Bourdais reckons Toro Rosso, who will start the season with a modified 2007 car, are currently in a strong position for the opening rounds, but that their prospects depend on how other teams progress with their new designs.

"It depends a lot on what the 2008 cars from the other teams do because obviously they are just at the beginning of the development of their cars," he said.

"We are at our final stage of development. Right now it looks like we're in the mix. If they show up in Melbourne or in Malaysia with big updates then we might not be in the mix anymore. So let's see what they come up with - hopefully not too much."

The Frenchman is relaxed about the prospect of finally making his Grand Prix debut.

"I'm not confident, but I'm not un-confident," Bourdais said. "I'm usually quite flat with my emotions - I just get to a place and try to enjoy myself and do the best I can.

"As far as I'm concerned, I've been in the business for quite some time but I'm a rookie here, so I need to learn a lot of things. I don't really know exactly what to expect, but it's not worth stressing about it because there's nothing you can do except your best."