Scuderia Toro Rosso Technical Director Jody Egginton was pleased to see both Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon secure positions inside the top ten in Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday.
Kvyat initially qualified eighth but will move up to seventh once former Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly takes his grid penalty for blocking, while Albon made it through to the top ten shootout for the first time in his Formula 1 career and will line up tenth.
Egginton felt the team was able to get a lot of performance out of the two STR14’s during the session at the Circuit de Monaco and it gives both Kvyat and Albon good starting positions for one of the toughest races on the Formula 1 calendar.
“Overall, today has been pretty satisfactory,” said Egginton. “The drivers and the team have done a good job to extract performance from our cars resulting in a successful Qualifying and reasonable starting positions for tomorrow’s race.
“The setup changes made to Dany’s car since Thursday provided him with a more consistent package and, as a result, he has been able to extract more lap time, improve his consistency and we have been rewarded with Dany making to Q3 and qualifying P8.
“On the other side of the garage, Alex was not totally happy with his car’s balance during FP3, so further changes were made to address this during the morning session and also ahead of Qualifying, which had some effect, allowing Alex to also progress to Q3 and qualify P10.”
Egginton hopes they can convert the top ten grid slots into a two car points finish on Sunday, with the technical director hopeful that both Kvyat and Albon can keep out of trouble and aim to stay inside the top ten.
“We are now fully focused on race preparations in order to take advantage of the good work done today,” said Egginton. “Our target is simply to finish the job and secure points with both cars.”
