Saturday: Daniel smiling, Jean-Eric crying at Toro Rosso
If Daniel Ricciardo did not make the slightest mistake and took advantage of others' errors to seize a fourteenth place on the starting grid, Jean-Eric Vergne paid the price for the changes made to his STR7 overnight and his lack of running in free practice following an off-track excursion. The Frenchman will start in 20th position.
Daniel Ricciardo – 16th and 14th:
This result is not too bad given the pace we had shown up to that point this weekend. The fourteenth place was about the best we could do, while three tenths separate us from the thirteenth place.
I managed to do better than some of our usual rivals, but fourteenth isn’t groundbreaking, and we always want to do better. However, we can be satisfied with the way we’ve improved the car over the two days, making a step forward, and we hope we can make further progress tomorrow.
Jean-Eric Vergne – 23rd and 20th:
« My small mistake in Free Practice 3 cost me a lot. I didn’t drive this morning and then, this afternoon, I never really found a clear lap, encountering a lot of traffic, which is therefore disappointing. Moreover, my car was quite different today compared to yesterday, so it wasn’t the easiest to adapt to it in just a few laps in Q1.
Even if the absence of traffic wouldn’t have changed my position on the grid too much, a few clear laps would have allowed me to improve my performance and have a better feel for the car with these different settings.
Regarding my morning issue, I did bite into the wet grass a bit after the overnight showers, and the car simply slipped away from me, but the guys worked well to have everything ready for qualifying.
We always have a good car for the race, so let’s wait and see how much lost ground we can regain tomorrow.
