Saturday: Scuderia Toro Rosso between disappointment and hope
Even though the Italian team, as usual, favored the race, disappointment is evident in the statements, along with the hope of seeing the tire-saving strategy pay off.
Sebastien Buemi – 11th and 15th
« I did a great lap in Q1, but I can’t be happy with my Q2 because I made a mistake coming out of turn 9, hitting a curb a bit too hard which sent me into the grass; it cost me around half a second. I’m disappointed with that because I finished behind the Williams when I could have easily been ahead of them. We made the decision to save tires for the race, and we’ll see if it’s the right decision for tomorrow. Tire degradation is quite significant, which means having new tires will be important for the race ».
Jaime Alguersuari – 12th and 16th
« We could have had better performance in qualifying, but we focused on the race in terms of our setup and aerodynamic balance. Despite that, even though the grid position isn’t so good, I’m quite happy because I feel that tomorrow I will have a good car to score points. I could have gone faster this afternoon, but we decided to save the tires. I think we can see a similar situation to Valencia and Monza, being very fast during the race. We tried to focus a lot on the race regarding tire management, even if it penalized us this afternoon. Thanks to the mechanics who did a great job fixing the problem on the car after Q1 to allow me to get back in Q2 ».
Giorgio Ascanelli
« We seemed good during FP1 on Friday, but we had to backtrack because there were reliability issues with the new parts. But today, we didn’t manage to come back, and it’s not a good performance, either in the session design or in our ability to produce a good lap. On the other hand, we could have given another set of tires to Sebastien at the end of Q2. It wouldn’t have been possible with Jaime because he had too much understeer and couldn’t fix it. In fact, this might play in our favor for the race, because according to our data, the tires will be very difficult to manage tomorrow, which explains Jaime’s understeer. Sebastien was happy with the car, but he made a mistake on the track. As usual, I tried to prioritize the race, which is why we didn’t send him back out, and inevitably, a few drivers went ahead ».
