STR happy with trouble free Friday
The Scuderia Toro Rosso enjoyed a trouble free first day at the European GP in Valencia, Spain. Sebastian Buemi evaluate tyres on a long stint while teammate Jaime Alguersuari tested different brake systems and also did long runs.
Sebastien Buemi
(STR5-02)
“We had a trouble free day, which is always important, so I am happy with that. It was an interesting day, because between the morning and the afternoon, we saw the biggest improvement in lap time that we have had so far this season. That makes life quite difficult, because as the grip improved very quickly, you had to find the confidence to make use of it immediately, which is different to what we are used to. We have a reasonably good understanding of tyre behaviour after doing the long stint. Now we have to see where we can improve for tomorrow and overall the work we did today was not too bad.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.43.310, pos. 13th, 23 laps
Second Practice Session - Best lap 1.41.115, pos. 16th, 35 laps
Jaime Alguersuari
(STR5-03)
“In the morning we did a useful test on the brakes, however, I preferred the previous system, which we went back to for the afternoon, therefore, FP1 did not mean much, but as the track conditions improved a lot for the afternoon, that was not a problem. In FP2, the car felt quite good and I was getting a much better feeling with the brakes, which are very important here, because on this track you can gain a lot of time through your braking. It was particularly good on the long runs, so I am expecting a lot from tomorrow, as we improved the car significantly from the morning to the afternoon and there is the potential to improve still more.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.44.183, pos. 18th, 21 laps
Second Practice Session - Best lap 1.41.457, pos. 18th, 36 laps
Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “A trouble free day for both cars, which meant we were able to complete our entire work programme: it was a mix of race preparation, while also looking at qualifying. As always here, the grip level was very low in the morning, followed by a very significant improvement in the second session. Now we have to study all the data we have gathered in order to try and improve our single lap performance for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Source: STR
