Sunday: Buemi brings 2 points to Toro Rosso
The Swiss driver increased his points total in the championship after a solid race, on a 3-stop strategy, which could have allowed him to match his performance in Australia. However, the Toro Rosso driver had difficulties with his tires towards the end of the race and had to give in to the attacks from the Lotus-Renault drivers, while his teammate suffered from recurring tire problems throughout the race.
Sebastien Buemi – 9th
« Generally speaking, I am very happy with my race and I don’t think I could have done better. However, it is true that in the last two laps, I lost two places and, without that, we could have finished in 7th place. But I couldn’t even hold the steering wheel anymore because there were too many vibrations due to my tires: it wasn’t because of their handling, so we need to analyze this carefully as I had never encountered this before. At the same time, it was a great race, I made a lot of overtakes and fought hard. Scoring points after starting from 16th place is something to be satisfied with. We decided to make only three pit stops, because it was obvious that it wouldn’t cost us as much time as an additional pit stop […]. We continue to develop the car and new developments will come, which I hope will allow us to keep fighting for points in the upcoming races. »
Jaime Alguersuari – 16th
« As usual, I did my best by attacking from the start. But I suffered a lot from the degradation of the rear tires, especially in the last stint. That means I had a lot of oversteer, which explains why I had to pit for a fourth stop. I don’t understand why my teammate suffered less than I did, so we need to look at the data to find out why. The next race is in Barcelona, which is obviously very important for me since it’s my home race. I have a lot of good memories there, including scoring points there last year. »
Franz Tost
Given our performance in qualifying yesterday, which saw us start in 16th and 17th positions on the grid, we are happy with Sebastien Buemi’s 9th place. He delivered by far his best performance since the beginning of the season, running around 8th place and even occasionally higher. Unfortunately, under pressure from the Lotus Renault GP, who had fresher tires, he couldn’t defend his position in the last lap. The team should be praised for having executed a good strategy and gained a few extra points today, which is important in the Constructors’ Championship battle. In Barcelona, I hope that we can aim for points again.
