Sunday: The Toro Rosso drivers finish far behind
For the home Grand Prix of one of its sponsors, the Toro Rosso team did not shine in Abu Dhabi, quite the opposite. The gamble of a single pit stop with Jean-Eric Vergne did not work, and the Frenchman finished 17th just behind Daniel Ricciardo, who lost everything at the start and in the first lap.
Daniel Ricciardo – 16th:
« It wasn’t the race I was hoping for. In this sport, if the start goes badly, it’s hard to recover, so I want to analyze the data to understand what happened. The car didn’t get off well and then, at turn 1, it was a bit chaotic so I fell back behind the group that was following me. I had to go outside to avoid contact and from then on, my race was over. At the moment, our pace isn’t enough for us to fight for the top 10 again if these things happen. We need to see what we can do to get better starts because when you manage that, you can usually score points. »
Jean-Eric Vergne – 17th:
« It’s a very disappointing result. To sum up, choosing a one-stop strategy was the right decision, but we switched from the soft to medium tires a bit too early, so my tires were worn towards the end, just when I had a whole group of cars behind me. The original plan was to make two stops, but with how the race unfolded, we decided to take that gamble, but it didn’t pay off. I tried to keep my tires alive, but it wasn’t enough. It’s a shame because I was in the points for most of the race, especially because the car seemed good and I had a good pace. It seems luck isn’t on my side this season, as it’s not the first time we’ve had a good race before circumstances turned against me.
The incident with Alonso? For a while now, if a driver puts a wheel outside while overtaking, they get a penalty, and he had all four wheels outside. But he would have passed me anyway on the next straight because I was struggling with my tires at that moment.
