Late mechanical failure costs points for Toro Rosso
Toro Rosso had a very difficult race at Korea with Jean-Eric Vergne quickly out of a chance for points with an early pitstop. Daniel Ricciardo looked set for 9th after a strong first stint but suffered a mechanical failure just 2 laps from the finish.
Jean-Eric Vergne, STR8-03, 18th: “At the moment, we’re not quite sure what happened in the end. I felt the car pull to one side and something was clearly not right, so the team called me into the pits. Starting from sixteenth, this was always going to be a difficult weekend and after I made up a few places in the early stages, I began to suffer with tyre degradation, so I agreed when the team decided to switch me from a two to a three stop strategy. I just want to get to Suzuka and start again now, but we will need to do a lot of work if we want to return to the performance level we should have had here.”
Daniel Ricciardo, STR8-01, 19th (DNF): “I think we did all we could today in the race. I had a decent first stint and tried to run as long as possible on the Prime tyre. The car wasn’t perfect but it was good enough to be in a points position with a few laps to go and I was hanging on nicely to ninth. It’s déjà vu, as I had the same scenario here last year, when I came down to Turn 3 with a few laps to go, I braked and the car immediately shot to the left. That time it cost me one place. Once I got out of the cockpit this time, I could see there was a mechanical problem at the front left corner. Personally, I was really pleased with my performance in the car today. Maybe we didn’t have a top ten car but I was able to fight in the top ten. But for myself and the team it’s frustrating to get no reward. Now all we can do is look ahead to Suzuka.”
Franz Tost, Team Principal: “Daniel was the only driver to start on the Medium tyre as we wanted to try something different on the strategy front to make up some places. It seemed to work well, as he made up a few positions by mid race. However, the Safety Car came at the wrong time for him, but we had to bring him in, knowing he would have a tough final stint on the Supersofts. But he did a good job of managing his tyres and defending his ninth place quite comfortably. Then with two laps to go, we had a mechanical issue on the car which we will investigate when we get it back and he had to park at the side of the track. Jev had a harder afternoon, starting from further back and, after making up a few places, the heavy traffic in the back of the field meant he had higher tyre degradation. We decided to switch him to a three stop strategy, but in the end we had to retire him with what might be a similar problem to Daniel’s car.”
UPDATE: The team confirmed one week later that both cars didn't finish due to the same brake duct issue. The team's techical director, James Key, said it was a failure they had not seen before and didn't cause any other damage to the car, but it was enough to have to retire both cars.
