Quite a scare for Toro Rosso at Shanghai
The Scuderia Toro Rosso had quite a scare today as, during the first free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, the wheels of Sebastian Buemi's car came off while braking. The Swiss remained unharmed, but was very disappointed not to come in action for the rest of the day. Team mate Jaime Alguersuari enjoyed his first day on the Shanghai track and completed a lot of work.
Jaime Alguersuari (STR5-03): “Another new circuit for me: it’s impressive, tough and technical but enjoyable to drive. Today went well for me, as we completed a lot of work, trying different fuel loads and working on set-up, as well as a tyre comparison. The hard tyre definitely takes a lot longer to come up to temperature, while the soft tyre seemed to work very well for us and should be good in the race. We still have work to do to improve tomorrow, but I am happy with what we have achieved so far.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.38.161, pos. 11th, 19 laps
Second Practice Session - Best lap 1.36.377, pos. 8th, 43 laps
Sebastien Buemi (STR5-01): “There’s not much to say about what happened in FP1. I braked, the wheels came off and that was it. Physically, I was fine though. But I have to say, I am extremely disappointed that, once again, through no fault of my own, I have been unable to run for almost all of the three hours available. I will have to try and catch up on Saturday morning and we will be relying on Jaime’s data from today to see which way to go.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.39.939, pos. 17th, 5 laps
Second Practice Session – No time
Giorgio Ascanelli: “Sebastien’s accident this morning was down to a technical problem on the right hand upright, which proved simple to identify once we got the car back. We have resolved the problem, which the many laps completed by Jaime this afternoon confirms. Sebastien’s FP1 session was interrupted shortly after the start because of a fluid leak around the pedal area, which we discovered after his installation lap. Apart from the upright, the afternoon accident caused some damage to the gearbox and a combination of fixing this problem and changing the front end meant that, despite the best efforts of the mechanics, we could not get Seb out before the end of the day. Fortunately, Jaime did a lot of laps in a trouble free session, after we had stopped him as a precaution towards the end of FP1, until we had identified the problem on his team-mate’s car. For his debut on this circuit, Jaime did quite a good job today.”
