Toro Rosso were left disappointed after qualifying in Korea today. After earlier showing good pace throughout the weekend, both Ricciardo and Vergne failed to progress beyond Q2.
It was a blow for the team had been consistently the quickest cars in the speed traps.
For Daniel Ricciardo it was doubly disappointing as he suffered a gearbox failure whilst on a flying lap, which brought out the yellow flags towards the end of the session.
“In Q2, we were only doing two runs of one flying lap each and on my last one, I simply lost drive coming out of Turn 12, feeling as if the car was in neutral and I couldn’t find any gears. I could not bring the car back to the pits and had to abort the run at the side of the track.”
“A shame, because Q1 went very well and I was able to post a competitive time. I don’t know if I could have eventually got into Q3, but whatever the result, this has been a missed opportunity, although that’s part of the game in motor racing. Hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow,” he said.
Despite Ricciardo’s problems, Jean-Eric Vergne was unable to beat his time and will line up one place behind him on the grid tomorrow. The Frenchman still remains hopeful of finishing in the points however.
“The performance looked very good and competitive this afternoon, but unfortunately I tried to take the final corner flat on my very last run, but I got it wrong and ruined my lap, nearly losing the car, so I am angry with myself for that.”
“The step up in performance compared to yesterday came partly from improving the car overnight and again since FP3 and partly from myself, in the way I was driving. Of course I will be trying to get a good start tomorrow and hope that I can then work my way into a points scoring position by the end of the race.”
