Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost was hoping to see his drivers score more than just two points in the Singapore Grand Prix, especially as both Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat started inside the top seven.
Tost bemoaned the sluggish start of former driver Max Verstappen that meant that Sainz was forced into avoiding action, only to clip Force India driver Nico Hülkenberg, and with damage to the bargeboard of his car, the stewards called him into the pits to get it removed which put him on the back foot for the rest of the afternoon.
“After qualifying in P6 and P7, we of course expected more than only two points today,” said Tost. “Unfortunately, Carlos got stuck behind Max Verstappen, who didn’t get a good start…
“Therefore, he had to move to the right-hand side where Nico Hulkenberg was, and they crashed into each other. This meant that Carlos’ car was damaged and we had to pit him early – he was shown the black and orange flag and we needed to remove the broken barge board.
“From then onwards, his race was quite compromised. Nevertheless, he managed to do some good lap times until the end of the race, even if we had a problem with his Energy Recovery System.”
Tost was happy to see Kvyat drive a strong race, but felt the Russian was unlucky to get stuck behind the Force India of Sergio Perez after the pit stop cycle, with the lack of straight-line speed preventing the Russian from improving on his ninth position.
“Daniil did a very good race,” said Tost. “He was fighting against [Fernando] Alonso and defended quite well against Max, but couldn’t overtake Perez at the end of the race because we simply miss some speed on the straights. Therefore, he finished in P9.
“Let’s shift our focus quickly towards the next couple of back-to-back races in Malaysia and Japan.”
