Italian veteran and former Monaco Grand Prix winner Jarno Trulli on Friday told the top teams to stop moaning about ‘traffic’ and get on with the racing ahead of this weekend’s vital qualifying session for Sunday’s race.
The Lotus driver, who is one of those whose speed is several seconds per lap slower than the fastest cars, said the teams had wasted their opportunities to create a safer system and should ‘belt up’.
He said: “To be honest, I will be really furious if someone starts complaining about it on Saturday after qualifying. There was plenty of time to find a solution and they did not agree one.”
Trulli won the race for Renault in 2004 and understands fully the concern of top drivers worried that it will be very difficult to find a clear lap with 24 cars all vying for space in the 20 minutes of Q1.
He added: “This is Monaco, it is always hard and the traffic will be as bad as usual.
“But I don’t see any big issue. There are some cars that are much quicker than us, but there is 20 minutes in the session.
{{/usCountry}}“But I don’t see any big issue. There are some cars that are much quicker than us, but there is 20 minutes in the session.
{{/usCountry}}“The top teams only need one lap to stay ahead of us. I don’t think it will be a problem.”
Trulli’s views were supported by Pole Robert Kubica who said there was no point in moaning about the situation. He said: “It is tricky in Monaco, but to be honest it was not too bad in practice.
“I believe that for the guys in the new team cars, it is not easy to keep their cars on the track - and additionally moving out of the way, where the track is very narrow, is not easy for them either.”