It was a strong first day of practice at the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix, for Scuderia Toro Rosso and their drivers Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat.
With both drivers finishing inside the top ten during FP2, the Faenza-based squad can be happy with their progress. Sainz improved well from tenth in FP1 to finish sixth at the end of FP2 and the Spaniard confirmed he enjoyed every minute of track time on the Monte-Carlo streets.
“To have a smooth Thursday in Monaco is always important in order to build-up your confidence for the rest of the weekend.
“The track is really fast compared to last year and the lap times are coming down nicely… It feels like we’re pushing the Formula 1 cars back to really challenging times!
“I was a bit surprised with the amount of degradation on the Ultrasofts, which won’t be easy to handle, but it will be the same for everyone and we will see what we can do in the race.
“We were able to complete our programme and had no issues throughout the day, so we can be pretty happy with our start to the Monaco Grand Prix.”
Team-mate Kvyat also impressed, finishing in fifth place in the afternoon practice session, just three tenths down on sister team driver, and man who replaced him at the Red Bull Racing squad, Max Verstappen. The Russian advised he was happy with the days running and is confident ahead of Sunday’s race.
“I think it was a decent day for us in the office today. We completed many useful laps and we had a very consistent day here in Monaco.
“We now have plenty of things to look at tonight and tomorrow, as well as analysing everything before qualifying and the race.
“I think that overall we are looking quite good, there is good potential for us, and I’d say that if we do our homework well we can have a strong weekend.”
The STR squad have so far looked like they have the performance to score a strong result here in Monaco, and could even spring a surprise if the race is as incident packed as the practice sessions have been!
