» A slow start for Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso got off to a slow start in Malaysia today with both cars struggling for pace. Despite the issues, both drivers have remained confident that they can change things up heading into qualifying and the race.

Both drivers were seventeenth and eighteenth in the first practice session while Jean-Éric Vergne improved to 15th in practice 2. Daniel Ricciardo however could only manage an improvement to 17th, and says that despite the issues the team has learnt a lot in the Malaysian conditions.

“We learned a lot about the tyres today.” Ricciardo said.

“In the morning, they seemed to struggle in the heat and we made some changes to help deal with that in between the two sessions. We managed to improve the balance of the car to prolong tyre life and I think we succeeded to a certain extent in doing that. We still have more work to do on that.”

Vergne on the other hand was more positive for the weekend ahead.

“I think this was a positive day, including the reliability front which is important.” He said.

“We concentrated on our long run work and we got some good answers from that, which is the most important thing, rather than looking for quick lap times. Consistent times over a distance are more important. For tomorrow, we can now look at finding more pace.”