Brake and gearbox problems for Toro Rosso

It was a rather difficult Friday for the Scuderia Toro Rosso at the Sepang International Circuit. In the morning, Vettel suffered a brake problem and in the afternoon team mate Bourdais had a gearbox problem. Still Vettel was able to finish on 5th position in the second free practice session which is encouraging for tomorrow's qualifying session.

Sebastian Vettel: "Lap times don't always tell the full story, but I think we can be happy with the afternoon, when we did quite a lot of laps. Unfortunately, this morning we had a brake problem, but in the end it did not cost us too much time and we were able to continue with our programme in the afternoon. We spent most of the time fine-tuning the car and finding the right balance, sorting out tyre choice. It has been a good day and we have got plenty of data to study for tomorrow."
First Practice Session
Best lap 1.38.219, pos. 15th, 26 laps
Second Practice Session
Best lap 1.36.474, pos. 5th, 35 laps

Sebastien Bourdais: "This circuit is very nice and very fast, a really good track. However there wasn't much grip so it was difficult to get a full understanding of the situation. Then it was a case of moving forward step by step, waiting for the track to come to us. Unfortunately, this afternoon, we had a gearbox problem right at the start, after a ratio change and this error on our part broke the engine. The car seemed not too bad this morning and we were planning to see how it felt on different tyres this afternoon, but it was not to be."

First Practice Session
Best lap 1.38.798, pos. 18th, 25 laps
Second Practice Session
Best lap - , pos. 21st, 1 lap