Sunday Review: Toro Rosso: A Difficult Race
After scoring points in Australia, Toro Rosso hoped to maintain its position with the Malaysian Grand Prix. But the car did not seem as competitive as during the season's opening round.
After qualifying not far from Q3, the two Toro Rosso drivers had points as their goal. Unfortunately, neither of them could improve their position on the grid, and the small Scuderia left empty-handed.
Sebastien Buemi 13th
I had a good start, overtaking Rosberg and I had good pace just behind Kobayashi and Schumacher, but at my first stop, I felt that the speed limiter didn’t completely engage. I pressed it again immediately, which deactivated it, so I was too fast in the pit lane and received a ten-second stop penalty, which I find a bit harsh since usually, you just get a drive-through which makes you lose less time. After that, I gave it my all but it wasn’t enough to reward everyone’s work, as I felt we could have challenged the Force Indias and finished ninth. I only changed tires twice, and it’s true that the last laps were very difficult due to their degradation.
Jaime Alguersuari 14th
« I need to analyze the race with the engineers, because to be honest, I don’t really understand what happened: we were slow and the tire degradation was very significant, much more than on Friday. I struggled to clean the graining on the front tires but I was losing performance, lap after lap. On a more positive note, I had a good start, gaining a few places. But quickly, I noticed that I couldn’t keep up with the others ahead of me. With the difficulties I had, I feel that finishing the race is already a very good thing, and it was the best I could do today. »
Franz Tost
Our two drivers got off to a rather good start, with Alguersuari finishing the first lap in 11th place, ahead of Buemi. By the eighth lap, Sebastien passed Jaime, showing a good pace at that point in the race, close to the others in front of him. We called him for his first stop, but the speed limiter was disabled and because of that, he exceeded the limit and received a ten-second stop penalty. From then on, Seb’s race was compromised, and if that hadn’t happened, he could have been in the battle for ninth place. As for Jaime, he struggled with tire degradation, and I think it would have helped if we had put him on a three-stop strategy rather than two. Fortunately, our closest rivals in the championships didn’t score many points today, so we remain in a reasonable position in the constructor’s championship. Of course, the middle of the table is very tight at the moment, which means we need to do a better job, starting from Shanghai in a few days.
