Vergne: “We can hope for points”

Jean-Eric Vergne did not manage to qualify for Q3 this afternoon during the Spanish Grand Prix qualifying, but the Frenchman was nevertheless pleased with his performance and his 12th place on the starting grid.

« I think we need to be realistic, we’ve made good progress. We can be happy to be here because we didn’t reach – I’ll say – a tenth of Q3 by chance. We’ve made good improvements to the car and I think we can be satisfied with that. Everything went well from the start to the end of qualifying. Besides the car improving, I think I’ve also improved in qualifying, so that’s a positive point, » said the Toro Rosso driver during a press conference organized in the Barcelona paddock.

The resurgence of performance of the STR8 is mainly due to the new features introduced, and this pleases Vergne for tomorrow’s race but also for the following ones: « We have a lot of aero novelties, we have new exhausts, a new floor, quite a few things, those are really the two biggest. The team worked well, the people at the factory managed to find something good. What is encouraging is that we will have other improvements like this throughout the year, so if each time it continues to work as well, it is very encouraging for the future. »

Even if he starts outside the top 10 tomorrow for the Spanish Grand Prix, JEV believes he can climb up the ranks because the Toro Rosso is better in race conditions: “Every time, we know now, I have a car that’s better suited for the race than for qualifying, so what we can hope for is some points, very clearly. I think we have the car to score points regularly, so that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

He also considers it entirely possible to catch Paul di Resta’s Force India on merit and consequently to score a point, or even more, at the finish.

From our special correspondent in Barcelona