Tost: “No reason to end up swapping positions Max and Carlos”
Published on 20 September 2015 by Niels Hendrix
The reaction of Franz Tost, Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal, after the Grand Prix of Singapore: “The beginning of the race was quite a big shock, as Max stalled the engine and could not start the race from his well-deserved P8 on the grid. We have to find out what happened, because the anti-stall should have prevented this from happening. We were lucky with the safety car, and Max was able to catch-up after being a lap down. He drove fantastically, with his lap times within the top five throughout the whole race. Towards the end he was fighting with Perez for P7, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to overtake him. Nevertheless, his eight position, under the circumstances of his race, is a success.”
“Carlos struggled a bit at the beginning because after yesterday’s crash in qualifying, he was forced to start from P14. After the safety car, he had a short technical issue, going into neutral, which we also need to investigate to understand why it happened. He lost a lot of positions because of this. At the end of the race, we thought that Carlos would catch Max faster, because he had new option tyres on, while Max had fitted used options. Therefore, we calculated that Carlos could’ve had a better chance to attack Perez, but he didn’t close the gap to Max well enough to really demonstrate that he could do this, so there was no reason to end up swapping their positions.”
“I must say that the performance from the car and the drivers was really fantastic and the new upgrades worked well. I’d like to congratulate the aero department for their great job back at the factory, because here at the track we’ve confirmed that all their calculations were actually valid. The vehicle performance group has also worked very well, because we really have a competitive car, which makes me confident we can also do a good job next week in Suzuka – I look forward to it!”
Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 track support leader, adds: “Overall it was a very good race and weekend, although we could have achieved a better result without the stall on the grid from Max. The engines worked perfectly all weekend and the crew did a great job trackside to ensure we had no issues. Let's continue in this form to ensure more good results for the team in the forthcoming races.”
