Toro Rosso qualified 12th and 17th for tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix, with Sebastien Buemi again getting the better of his less experience teammate Jaime Alguersuari.
Buemi was understandably happy to be starting alongside former world champion Lewis Hamilton tomorrow, and is targeting a points finish. “I am reasonably happy with today’s performance as I don’t think I could have done much more and I was unable to improve on my second set of soft tyres. I am very happy to be twelfth as eleventh was too far out of my reach as I was about five tenths off Hamilton. I hope we can come up with a good strategy for tomorrow, because if we do, then hopefully, I can finish in the points.”
Alguersuari said that getting closer to his teammate is one of his priorities, but was reasonably satisfied with his qualifying effort. “I think my performance was quite okay, especially with the harder tyre. Maybe if I had got more out of the soft tyre I could have improved a place or two. But because the track is not so long, the times are all very close. I am quite happy with what I did today, as I am getting closer to my team-mate’s performance which is one of my objectives. But there is still plenty of room for improvement.”
Toro Rosso Technical Director Giorgio Ascanelli praised his two drivers, and gave a mention to one of the team’s former drivers. “Both drivers did a good job, even if Jaime made a mistake at Turn 14, which he is unhappy about, but I’m happy that he’s unhappy about it! We have introduced a few changes to the car since the last race and it has made a difference today. It is too early to talk about an improving trend, but if we can repeat this type of qualifying performance in Malaysia, then that would be a confirmation that we are moving forward. And what a fantastic lap from Vettel in the Red Bull!”
