Team Principal of Scuderia Toro Rosso, Franz Tost, was disappointed with the results of the team at last weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which saw a double retirement and no points to end the year with.
He did however, congratulate the new Formula One World Champion, Nico Rosberg, who by coming second to Lewis Hamilton won the championship by five points. “First of all, I’d like to say that it was an exciting race and I congratulate Nico Rosberg for winning his first Formula 1 World Championship!”
Moving on to the team’s race, the team boss claimed that they had not expected to have such a poor weekend in all areas – practices, qualifying and the race.
“Regarding our race today, it wasn’t the result that we were expecting here in Abu Dhabi, because not finishing with both cars is quite disappointing,” said Tost. “Daniil, who was really well placed and driving a strong race, suffered a gearbox problem and therefore had to stop the car. Until then, he showed a really good performance.”
Carlos Sainz Jr also had to retire due to an issue with his gearbox – but only as a result of a collision with Brit Jolyon Palmer.
“Unfortunately, Carlos’ race also ended prematurely because of Palmer crashing into him,” said Tost. “The gearbox got damaged and he therefore couldn’t continue racing.
“This was definitely not our weekend – we already had problems on Friday with what seems like being a rear suspension issue,” commented the Austrian. “We still need to investigate this, even if next year it will look completely different, we need to know why this happened.
“We will now work very hard over the winter in order to be prepared in the best possible way for 2017.”
