Toro Rosso encouraged by strong qualifying
Toro Rosso was clearly pleased after qualifying both cars in the top ten for the Monaco Grand Prix. While for Jean-Eric Vergne things went smoothly, Daniil Kvyat initially had a touch with the barriers before punching back to 9th.
Jean-Eric Vergne, STR9-04, 7th: “I'm very happy with today’s Qualifying, certainly for myself but also for the guys, who have deserved some good results for all their hard work. To have both cars in the top ten is a great achievement for everybody. My last lap on the Super Softs was effected by the yellow flags but the first one was enough to secure P7, which is quite a good position to start the race tomorrow. If we can put everything together, I’m confident we can finish in the points with both cars. I will definitely push to at least maintain my seventh position until the chequered flag.”
Daniil Kvyat, STR9-03, 9th: "This was definitely the messiest Qualifying session of my career. In Q1 I lost the rear all of a sudden and touched the wall, so I had to come back to the pits for a nose change. I regained confidence straight away though and managed to do two good laps in Q2, which I’m very happy about. Unfortunately Q3 was a bit unlucky, because I was not able to go for a proper lap then, having started off on used Options. When I went out for the final run on new Options, I had to back off because of the yellow flag. Obviously this is frustrating because it is a track where you cannot overtake easily, but this is the way it is. We will now focus on preparing for tomorrow’s race, where we aim to finish in the points.”
James Key, Technical Director: “I think we can be pleased to get both cars into Q3 and that was our hope from some encouraging running on Thursday. We have got a lot of new things on the car under the bodywork this weekend, some mechanical changes which all seem to be working in the right direction and this is just the first positive step of our development plan for the next events. Today the temperatures were different compared to the other sessions so it was difficult to know how the car would behave but the team and the drivers did a good job. Both put in fantastic laps and I would like to congratulate them, particularly Daniil for being his first Monaco ever. Obviously it is tomorrow that counts but a good qualifying session is really important here on this track."
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 track support leader: “An awesome qualifying session for both drivers. Daniil had to recover from a very unfortunate Q1 accident but did a great job getting back on the pace and securing a position in the top ten. Likewise JEV had a very, very good day to put the team into seventh. The upgrades tested on Thursday proved to give us a real advantage, particularly with regards to the changes on the steering wheel. The limiter and pick-up also improved, both of which are both important here in Monaco.”
