Daniil Kvyat feels Scuderia Toro Rosso had a productive pair of free practice sessions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday, with the Russian breaking into the top ten in both.
Much like every other team on the grid, Toro Rosso brought upgrades to the Spanish circuit with a view of improving their position on the grid, with Kvyat using the updated STR14 to good effect on Friday, finishing ninth fastest in the morning session and tenth in the afternoon.
Kvyat believes Toro Rosso have the opportunity this weekend to make that step forward that would enable them to add to the four points they’ve scored in the opening four races of 2019 and move them up the Constructors’ Championship rankings.
“It was a productive Friday,” said Kvyat. “We completed many laps today without any big issues and we were able to gather some useful data, which we will analyse tonight to find the best setup for tomorrow.
“I’m positive that we’ll make a step, which is very important in such a tight midfield where every tenth matters.”
Team-mate Alexander Albon was more than six-tenths of a second down in the morning session in fifteenth but was much more competitive in the afternoon, ending up twelfth, just 0.057 seconds behind the Russian, with the Anglo-Thai driver feeling the pace of the upgraded Toro Rosso is strong.
He admitted it took some time in first practice to understand how the updates affected the way the car handled, hence the gap to Kvyat, but the afternoon session was a much more productive one, which gives him confidence for the rest of the weekend.
“Bringing updates means that it might take some time to understand how to make them work in the best possible way, and this is exactly what happened today in FP1,” said Albon. “We analysed all the data before starting today’s second session and FP2 was much more productive – we made a good step.
“It’s progress but there’s still some more work to do tomorrow. We’re in the ballpark and the pace still looks quite strong.”
