Toro Rosso are looking to repeat their Australian Grand Prix qualifying performance by making it through to Q3 once again with both cars. The team will be encouraged by a strong showing from Jean-Eric Vergne in the opening practice of the Malaysian Grand Prix as he finished sixth place before dropping to eleventh in the afternoon.
“A really good day in general. I think we have done a nearly perfect Friday and I’m really happy with the performance of the car.” said the Frenchman. “We still have to find the best solution for a few little issues that can definitely make us quicker. We look quite strong so far and working hard tonight I’m sure we will have a good car for tomorrow and maybe fight again for Q3. It’s a happy day.”
Rookie team-mate Daniil Kvyat who become the youngest points scorer in Formula One in Australia put in a constant performance for both sessions that saw him finish fourteenth place. “Even though I have raced at Sepang before in a junior formula, I have to say this was definitely one of the hottest days I have experienced, but I can’t say I found it a problem to deal with” he said.
“Today, we had a busy programme, looking at improving performance, doing some long runs and also trying the Medium and Hard tyres for the first time at a race weekend. I’m not completely satisfied yet with the set-up of the car. So tonight we’ll look at all the data with the engineers with the aim of getting as much performance as possible out of our package for the rest of the weekend.”
Chief race engineer Phil Charles was happy with the performance of his drivers and summed it up as “A pretty good day.”
“We worked through the programme on both cars. JEV has done a good job right from the start, also thanks to his experience here. Daniil had a lot to learn with the tricky track and he is taking that really well. We have done some testing on his car so for tomorrow we can put together all the bits and I’m sure we can make him faster. We are quite positive and look forward to tomorrow. I think there’s a little bit more to come.”
