Carlos Sainz Jr insists his Scuderia Toro Rosso team can be proud of their achievements during the opening qualifying session of the season in Australia on Saturday, with the Spaniard finishing seventh, two places behind team-mate Max Verstappen.
Sainz paid tribute to his team for providing both drivers with a strong car that enable them both to make it through to Q3, and hopes to build on this performance during the race around the Albert Park circuit on Sunday.
“We can be happy with our first qualifying session of the season – a P5 and a P7 here in Australia is a great result for the team!” insisted Sainz.
“I’m pleased with my starting position and even though in Q3 I wasn’t able to repeat a strong lap like I did in Q2, a P7 is a good starting point for tomorrow’s race.
“The car feels really good and the hard work we’ve done over the winter is starting to pay off. It was quite a hectic and tricky session for us, but we hope the fans enjoyed this new format.
“We’ve got good pace and our objective tomorrow will be to hopefully go forward and score as many points as possible. We need to aim for that top seven, and I’m certainly looking forward to that challenge, it will be a fun race!”
