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Toyota: Practice failures were costly

Toyota's technical chief Pascal Vasselon reckoned the time lost to mechanical problems in practice was a key factor in the squad's poor performance in Hungaroring qualifying

An electrical issue for Jarno Trulli on Friday afternoon and a hydraulic leak for Timo Glock this morning limited both drivers' running, and they ended up only 12th and 14th on the grid.

"Obviously we have had a few troubles this weekend," said Vasselon. "We had various technical issues with both cars, including a loss of hydraulic pressure for Timo this morning, and this has caused us to lose some valuable track time."

He felt the loss of mileage had made a critical difference because the times have been so close this weekend.

"The field is clearly very tight at the moment and if you are not getting the full potential out of your car, it costs you a lot," Vasselon said.

"We haven't performed well so far this weekend and the result today was not good enough. Still, we have to focus on the race tomorrow and look at the various options we have to try to make up positions."

But Glock felt he could have still achieved a better result in qualifying had he been delayed in traffic.

"I am disappointed with that result, especially because this morning I felt we had quite a good package and the car felt competitive, even though I lost some time," he said.

"For some reason we just couldn't get the best lap time out of the car, which is a pity. On my last flying lap I caught another car in the final corner and lost a little time; I am sure I would have been able to go faster but that's how things go in qualifying on a twisty track like this."

Trulli was less surprised by the result, saying he had been dissatisfied with the car's performance since practice.

"I have not been particularly happy with the car all weekend and unfortunately we couldn't make it into the top 10 today," said the Italian.

"The lap times have been very close all weekend and just a couple of tenths makes a big difference in the standings. Ultimately we didn't have the pace.

"It's difficult at the moment to judge exactly where we were lacking but obviously we were hoping for a better result. I am a racing driver and I never give up; the race is long and anything can happen so I will do my best to score points."

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