Sunday: The Toro Rosso drivers expected better
The Toro Rosso drivers were hoping to finish in the points today in Bahrain, but things did not go as planned. Jean-Eric Vergne was forced to retire, and Daniel Ricciardo did not achieve the expected performance, finishing in 16th place.
Daniel Ricciardo – 16th:
I got off to a good start, better than some of the guys around me and managed to get past Grosjean. Then at one point, I locked my wheels and lost one or two positions. All afternoon, we suffered from a lack of speed: in the first stint, getting the tires up to temperature was problematic and I lost a lot of time braking. We never managed to turn the situation around, even when we tried to make changes to the car’s balance during stops. We need to analyze what was wrong with the car because we were very limited in terms of downforce.
Jean-Eric Vergne – Retirement:
I was attacked by Bottas because I had just passed him on the outside of turn 4, leaving him room and he hit my car. Unfortunately for Van der Garde, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and there was a big impact, causing a lot of damage to my car, including a puncture and a large part of the floor missing. After my stop, I tried to continue to see how the car behaved, but in the end, I was a lap down and had lost a lot of aero, and the team could see that the damage was overheating the car to a dangerous level, so they called me in to retire. These first races haven’t gone very well for me, and I’m really hoping the start of the European season will be like a new beginning for me.
