Franz Tost was pleased to see Alexander Albon secure his maiden Formula 1 points in only his second Grand Prix, although incidents for Daniil Kvyat denied Scuderia Toro Rosso a double-points finish at the Sakhir International Circuit.
Albon capitalised on the late rate retirements for both Nico Hülkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo to move from eleventh to ninth to score two points, however Kvyat suffered an incident with Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi, which resulted in a spin at the end of the back straight, as well as a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, to finish twelfth.
Tost, Toro Rosso’s Team Principal, was pleased to see how Albon conserved his tyres during the race, particularly during the final stint, which he feels proved that he deserved the top ten result, while he believes Kvyat was unlucky with the incidents that befell him to deny him a shot at the points.
“First of all, congratulations to Alex Albon for having scored his first points in his only second race in Formula 1,” said Tost. “He showed fantastic performance, especially in managing the tyres towards the end of the race. He did a really good job and he deserved his ninth position.
“Daniil was involved in a couple of incidents, first with Giovinazzi – where he spun and lost a lot of time – then he was caught speeding in the pitlane, which meant he lost another five seconds. As a consequence, he couldn’t fight for points in the race.”
Tost feels the STR14 is a good package after an improved showing in the race compared to Qualifying, where he felt the team dropped the ball a little bit after being a top ten contender throughout free practice only to qualify twelfth and fifteenth respectively.
“In general, during the weekend here in Bahrain, we were consistently hovering between P7 and P10 but, unfortunately, we didn’t get everything together in Qualifying because of a few mistakes,” said Tost. “However, in the race we got our speed back, which means we need to remain positive as the package is good.
“Now we have a quick turnaround to get ready for the 1000th Grand Prix in China.”
