A crash for Sebastien Buemi into a tyre barrier at Monza’s famous Parabolica corner was unwanted drama for Toro Rosso as the team prepared for its home grand prix in Italy today.
The Swiss driver began the day well but, after completing only five laps in the afternoon practice session, was radioing his race engineer to inform him that the car was broken – a bit of an understatement given the damage from that collision.
“This morning went well, as we tried out various things on the car to see how it felt around Monza, so overall it was a positive session,” points out Buemi, who finished the day as the seventeenth fastest driver. “However, the afternoon was less successful as I only managed a handful of laps. I made a mistake and hit the wall, so I am sorry for giving the team a lot of work now to repair the damage. But, as they say, tomorrow is another day and this evening I will be working hard with the engineers to see what we can do for the rest of the weekend.
“In terms of tyres, not much to say and I only ran with the Prime so far. The DRS worked well and running the car in the Monza-specific low downforce configuration was interesting and enjoyable.”
Jaime Algersuari had some hairy moments during the day, including a close-shave with Lewis Hamilton towards the end of the day. However, the Spaniard finish up P14 and was in a positive mood when reflecting on the two sessions.
“I am very happy to be back racing at Monza which is a great track, with plenty of high speed sections and heavy braking to make it exciting,” he said. “In both sessions today, I got a good feeling from the car and I think we are continuing to show good form, with some improvement when running in qualifying trim.
“The whole team did a good job today and there is more potential to come out of the car tomorrow and on Sunday. If we continue to work well through the weekend, I think we can be fighting on level terms with Force India and Sauber again on Sunday.”
