It was a tale of differing fortunes for the Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers today, with Jean-Eric Vergne scoring his points of 2013, whilst Daniel Ricciardo was forced to retire for the second race in succession.
Despite suffering an early pit lane collision with Caterham’s Charles Pic, Vergne recovered and escaped penalty to finish in tenth place in an action packed race.
“It’s good to finish in the points, but it’s a shame that a mistake in the pits cost us so much, as I could have done something better. So, overall I feel rather frustrated. But I’ll take the point gladly. After these first two races, we now have a short break before we go racing again and we must use that time to take a close look at how we performed and where we can do better, because there is certainly a lot of room for improvement, as both these two races have been missed opportunities. On the positive side, again today, once we got over our problems I had a good race pace and managed to make up a lot of places,” the young Frenchman said.
Floor damage was cited as the reason for Daniel Ricciardo’s retirement, as the Australian’s disappointing week continued.
“I compromised my race even before the start when the conditions were very slippery, aquaplaning off at Turn 3. I managed to keep going, but I went across the gravel quite fast and damaged the floor. That probably played a part in my problem at the end,” he said.
“I got a reasonable start and made up a few places and was pretty pleased with the first couple of laps. But I did not have the pace to keep the Lotuses behind me and stay in the top ten, even though the switch to dry tyres was well timed. Like I said, I think the damage on that opening lap affected my overall performance all race long.”
“An eventful race with the field starting on Intermediates. We timed our switch to slicks well on both cars and Daniel made up a few positions straight away. The midfield battle was very fierce and we had one car at the front, Daniel, and one at the back of this group, Jev. Unfortunately, we had a poor release from Jev’s pit stop and he collided with a Caterham which cost us a lot of time, as we had to pull him back for a new nose. The Stewards have fined us for a dangerous release from a pit stop and we agree with their decision,” team boss Franz Tost added.
“After that, Jev did a good job to fight back and get into the points ahead of that midfield group, which is quite an achievement on a dry track. The fact our race pace was satisfactory was the most positive point of the race.”
