Saturday Report: Toro Rosso – On the Verge of the Top 10

The two Toro Rossos are on the brink of the Top 10 in qualifying, allowing the home drivers to consider a good result for tomorrow. Buemi and Alguersuari are very happy with the setup of their cars.

Sébastien Buemi – 12th:

«I am very happy with the progress of the qualifications today because for the second time in two races I delivered a good performance by improving with each lap. Unfortunately, I had a problem in Q1 when I lost the bodywork of my left sidepod, but the mechanics worked hard to put a new one on quickly.

«I am satisfied because being 12th, we are not very far from Mercedes and quite close to Q3, and we must continue to work to improve. It seems that we are on the right track. We made a lot of changes to the car between FP3 and qualifying, and it was the right thing to do, especially because these settings should work well in the race. I think it will probably rain tomorrow, so finishing the race will be the first objective. »

Jaime Alguersuari – 13th:

Finishing 12th and 13th is a good result for the team and I think we have the potential to have a good race tomorrow. We got the maximum out of our set-up. Sébastien was, once again, a few tenths faster than me.

I think we have a good setup whether it rains or not and I’m not worried about whether it will be a dry or wet race. The key will be to keep the rear tires alive for as long as possible and I hope we can bring back some points for the team.

Giorgio Ascanelli – Technical Director:

I am happy to be ahead of Force India and I think Sébastien did a good job this afternoon and is where he should be, which means he can have a good race tomorrow.

Until this afternoon, I had the feeling that we were not getting the full potential out of our car, but we changed that. Jaime also did a good job. To sum up, we didn’t do well in practice, but we did in qualifying.

Regarding the detachment of Sébastien’s sidepod in Q1, I do not yet know if it was because the piece was improperly attached or if a fastening gave way. However, there is no issue with the integrity of the components, which is why we installed another piece and then allowed him to continue.