Sunday: Missed Opportunities for Toro Rosso

Jaime Alguersuari – 15th:

I am very disappointed with the outcome of this weekend because we had opted for an aerodynamic strategy that proved to be the best for facilitating overtaking during the race. However, after the first four or five laps, I seemed to suffer from a bit of tire degradation and was losing the rear end.

Then came the key moment of my race, when there was a mistake during my pit stop that cost me a lot of time and relegated me to the back of the pack, from which I could not extricate myself.

Today, tenth place was possible because my pace was good with the soft tires, although I’m not sure we could have caught up with the two Force Indias.

I’m sure Brazil will suit us better, so I hope we have the chance to do better.

Sebastien Buemi – Retirement:

« I had to abandon due to a leak in the hydraulic system, which I initially noticed from the lack of power steering that relies heavily on hydraulics. Then, I could no longer change gears, so there was nothing else to do but take the car back to the garage and withdraw.

It’s such a shame because I was having a good race until then. Just before it happened, I had overtaken Di Resta’s Force India, and I was hoping to fight with Schumacher and Sutil, which means finishing between 7th and 9th place tonight would have been possible.

Now, we only have one more opportunity to try to score a few more points, so I am looking forward to going to Brazil to try and finish the season on a good note.

Franz Tost:

It was an evening of missed opportunities. As we expected, we weren’t as competitive in qualifying here as we were in India, but we thought we could do better in the race. At the start, this seemed to be true with Sebastian running in seventh position for a while. However, he had to bring the car back to the pits and retire due to a hydraulic failure caused by a fluid leak in the system.

Jaime was running a few places behind his teammate, but there was a mistake at the first stop, which cost him a lot of time and therefore dropped him down the standings. From there, he drove well, setting competitive times, but points were out of reach. With Sauber scoring a point today, our fight with them for seventh place in the constructors’ championship will be decided in Brazil, on a track that should better suit the characteristics of our car.