Ricciardo secures single point for Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo secured a single point for Toro Rosso at the Indian Grand Prix, finishing one place higher than where he started. Jean-Eric Vergne made similar progress and finished 13th.
Daniel Ricciardo, STR8-01, 10th: "I am pretty pleased with today’s performance, even if during the race I thought we were looking better than a tenth place finish, especially after the first stint went well and the pace was looking good. It seemed as though we could have matched Sutil and Di Resta, so there’s a little bit of disappointment about the fact I couldn’t get past them and get a couple more points. Generally, I am pleased with what I did in the car and now we move on to Abu Dhabi, where we have a lot of support, so I hope we can give them a good result next Sunday. Vettel? Phenomenal! Particularly since the summer break, when he grabbed the title and never let anyone else look at it.”
Jean-Eric Vergne, STR8-04, 13th: “I think the strategy we had was a good one, coming in very early to get rid of the Soft tyre. It could have paid off to the extent of getting into the points, but we were just too slow, even though we did everything we could. I just couldn’t do better today, so of course I am disappointed, because making up one place from my grid position is not really enough. At least we only have a few days to wait before trying again in Abu Dhabi. Vettel? What he’s done is something truly special, so congratulations.”
Franz Tost, Team Principal: “Firstly, our congratulations to Sebastian Vettel and Infiniti Red Bull Racing for their wonderful achievement today, with Seb taking a truly remarkable fourth consecutive Drivers’ title and the team doing the same in the Constructors’. As for ourselves, we knew it would be a very close fight in the mid-field, with so many cars having similar pace and that’s what we got. In Daniel’s case, we started him on the Medium tyre and he was able to run a long first stint, running as high as P3 for much of that time at a good pace. We knew it would be more difficult after that and he had a good fight with the guys around him. Towards the end, he found himself in a slow train and could not pass Sutil. With Jev, we tried the more extreme strategy of starting him on the Soft. In itself that was fine, because Di Resta was able to get a good result having made the same choice. But we lacked pace with Jev during the race and we struggled to move up the order, so he finished one place higher than he started, just as Daniel did.”
