Sunday: Toro Rosso still lacking pace in the dry
The weekends follow one another and look the same for Toro Rosso: just like at Silverstone, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne finished 13th and 14th respectively at the German Grand Prix. While there is improvement on a wet track, dry weather remains problematic.
Daniel Ricciardo – 13th:
I had a normal start and maintained my position during the first lap. So, at least, we didn’t make life even more complicated. However, it was clear from the early laps that I couldn’t keep the same pace as the cars around me, and I was struggling with a bit of understeer. After that, I lost places to the Saubers and Rosberg and couldn’t stay with them. At the first pit stop, I asked for more front wing to get rid of the understeer, and the second run was a bit better. I did the last run with even more wing, and it was the best car I had all afternoon. I was hoping to catch up with Di Resta, but eight laps from the end, I started losing grip at the rear, and it was over. We tried a bit of everything today, but unfortunately, we didn’t get any answers.
Jean-Eric Vergne – 14th:
I am both disappointed and happy: happy because the performances were quite good and disappointed because we had the bad luck of a puncture, which forced us to pit very early, ruining our race. In fact, I had a bad start, falling to 20th place but still managed to finish the first lap in 13th position. The car was working well enough to allow us a good result. The car clearly seems to perform better than in recent Grand Prix. This gives us hope to improve further in the next race. We have only a few days before Hungary, where I’ve done well in other categories, but this is Formula 1. So, wait and see.
