Sunday: Toro Rosso misses the boat
Toro Rosso had high hopes on Saturday night after qualifying. Both cars qualified in the top 10, points were achievable today for the Chinese Grand Prix. Unfortunately, Buemi damaged his front wing, forcing him to pit to change it. As for Alguersuari, a bad pit stop led to the Spaniard losing his right rear wheel a few corners later. Disappointment for the small Scuderia, which comes back with only a 14th place.
Sebastien Buemi – 14th:
This is not the result we were expecting, and I am quite disappointed and frustrated. I missed the points even though I started from 9th place. I didn’t really understand what happened at the start, but it was bad… even though I did everything to make it good. The car spun a lot, we’ll need to analyze the data. Then I was overtaken by Heidfeld, and I had a lot of understeer. We decided to change the front wing, which means a pit stop outside the predictions and therefore a completely new strategy. My race was therefore compromised. I think we could have done better without these incidents, but it is what it is, and we all need to see now how to improve before Turkey.
Jaime Alguersuari – Retirement:
« Since the beginning of the race, I have been struggling with the rear of the car, and we decided to pit earlier than planned. After this stop, I felt that the car was very unstable, then I lost my right rear wheel, and I couldn’t do anything. After the best qualifying of my career, I would have hoped for a better result even though we made a mistake by choosing the most worn tires for the start of the race. We already knew then that my qualifying result was compromised. »
Laurent Mekies – Chief Engineer:
None of our cars made a good start, thus losing the benefit of a good qualifying. After that, we asked Jaime [Alguersuari] to pit earlier to switch him to a three-stop strategy, but he had to retire shortly after due to a loose wheel nut. We are investigating the actual cause of the incident. For Sebastien [Buemi], we called him in for refueling and then noticed a problem with his front wing. We called him in again to change it. He then delivered a strong performance on a two-stop strategy because it was our only chance to beat the Williams. He overtook Maldonado and then finished right behind Barrichello.
