Toro Rosso were left to rue what could have been after Daniil Kvyat narrowly missed out on a points finish when a brake disc failure hit his car heading in to the first corner.
Following the news that Kvyat would face a grid penalty for having to change his Renault power unit the F1 rookie started from last place on the grid and had battled up to ninth place before the mechanical gremlins struck.
Kvyat showed perfect composure to keep in control of his car as it jinked wildly out of control following the failure. Thankfully for the young Russian it was only a few laps from the end of the race and he was able to nurse his car to the finish line, albeit out of the points in eleventh place.
“I feel disappointed with how my race ended” said Kvyat. “We had a brake disc failure I think, but I managed to hang on and bring the car home in P11.
“It’s a shame when you give it your hundred percent and you finish the race outside the points, but I’m very pleased with my race in general. Starting from the back is never easy, but I managed to overtake a few cars and get close to a points finish. We will now have a look at what exactly happened, before heading to the next race in Singapore.”
Team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne stuggled throughout the weekend with performance issues and would bring his car home in the position he started in, thirteenth place.
“From the beginning of the weekend our performance was not on the level where we would like to be” Vergne stated. “Even though we have been working very hard, session after session, to improve the car handling, I have been struggling for the whole race, making it very tough today.
“We will now have to analyse carefully what went wrong and hopefully we will come back stronger at the next race in Singapore.”
Team Principal Franz Tost was happy with Kvyat’s performance but obliviously disappointed to finish outside of the points. “Daniil did a fantastic job today. Starting from the last position on the grid he was able to make his way up.
“I think he is the driver who can count the highest number of overtaking during today’s race. In the last two laps he was fighting to close the gap to Kimi Raikkonen, getting quite close to him, but unfortunately he suddenly suffered a front brake failure, which we will have to investigate. Only thanks to his extraordinary driving skills he was able to control the car and avoid a collision.
“All considered, I’m really impressed by his capability to close the gap to the cars in front of him and I’m convinced that he might have finished the race in 9th position today, after the 5 seconds penalty imposed to Magnussen.
“As for Jean-Eric, he complained about a lack of grip which made him struggle with the car for the entire race and therefore he finished in the thirteenth position. The team has done a solid job with a good working strategy and fast pit stops. We just have to go on pushing as much as possible to arrive well prepared in Singapore to score the points which we missed out on today.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 track support leader expressed that the engine suppliers did everything they could to give the team the most power from the Renault power-plant. “On the engine side we really pushed the Power Units to the max, taking calculated risks to improve performance on the hardest ‘engine’ track of the year.
“Despite the higher than expected temperatures everything worked fine. We are now looking forward to Singapore, which should suit the car more than this track.”
