Toro Rosso unsure about pace
Even though the teams are now all at Barcelona, Toro Rosso continued its test programme they started at Mugello, targeting aerodynamic evaluation. Overall, there is still quite some work to do as neither of the drivers were particularly happy with the results.
Jean-Eric Vergne, STR7-03:
FP1: Best lap: 1:25.367, pos. 11th, 22 laps
FP2: Best lap: 1:24.733, pos. 16th, 34 laps
“This morning we continued with some aero evaluation that we had started at the Mugello test. In the afternoon, we worked mainly towards the race and I feel we found some good solutions. Now, we must start to think about qualifying and how to improve the car balance, but so far it does not look too bad. I tried both types of tyre and, as you would expect the Option brings a big advantage in terms of lap time on low fuel and the Prime has a longer life, but all the same it will be interesting to see what will be the best tyre strategy for Sunday. The new parts? It’s hard to say what improvement they have brought, as the other teams have been developing their cars too.”
Daniel Ricciardo, STR7-01
FP1: Best lap 1:26.226, pos. 16th, 24 laps
FP2: Best lap: 1:24.769, pos. 17th, 37 laps
“We tried a few different downforce settings in the morning and we were not too convinced by our pace. So we decided to make a few changes to the car for the afternoon session in terms of how to run our aero package. It gave me a slightly better feeling from the car, but we still need to work hard on set-up to try and find something extra there, if we want to be in contention for Q3 on Saturday. I have a few ideas of what we want to do and the engineers, who are probably a bit smarter than me, have definitely got some ideas up their sleeves.”
Laurent Mekies, Chief Engineer: “Both our cars ran trouble-free all day which is the first element you need if you are to have a good weekend. It means we completed a lot of laps and were able to work through all the programme we had planned for these three hours. In the morning, we dedicated most of the time to evaluating a couple of components we had not managed to fit into our Mugello programme. Then, in the afternoon, we concentrated on the normal race weekend tasks of trying to find the best set-up in both qualifying and race trim. The interesting challenge here is to balance the car for the different characteristics of various parts of the track. Now we still have quite a lot of work tonight to be where we want to be, but overall this was a reasonable day’s work.”
