Formula 1

Albon and Kvyat Hoping Free Tyre Choice Can Move Them Into The Points On Raceday

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Scuderia Toro Rosso
Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd

Alexander Albon and Daniil Kvyat were both left frustrated as they missed out on a spot in the top ten shootout in qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The two Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers will start 12th and 13th on the grid at the Hungaroring with Albon outqualifying Kvyat for a sixth time this season.

Albon had crashed heavily at the final corner on Friday and admits while he was disappointed to miss out on the top ten, he can be pleased with his efforts in qualifying.

“I’m pretty satisfied with P12 after a tough FP2 after the crash.

“The car had the potential to reach Q3, but we were always just missing something which was a bit frustrating.”

Free Practice 3 was shortened to only fifty minutes and Albon admitted he was not feeling great with the car following that session.

“Overall, I’m happy because after FP3 I was struggling as the car didn’t really feel connected.

“We made a few changes after FP3 and in Qualifying the car felt more hooked up, so I got the rhythm back.

“Reaching Q3 would have been nice, but we were two tenths from getting through, the balance was good in some corners and in other places it wasn’t.”

Overtaking round Hungary is not the easiest and Albon is hoping having a free choice of tyre to start the race can help them reach the points.

“Track position is key around here as there isn’t many places to overtake, so we’ll need to think of a good strategy for tomorrow.

“We’re near the front of the free tyre allocation and I think the degradation will be quite high here, so hopefully we’ll be able to overtake some cars.” 

Kvyat lines up on the seventh row of the grid for the second successive weekend and the Russian doesn’t believe there was much more pace left in the car.

“Apart from a little misunderstanding with the team on the last run, when we went out with the wrong setting on the car, it was an OK Qualifying session.

“There wasn’t that much left in the car today, maybe a tenth, so this is generally where we are at the moment.”

Kvyat, like his team-mate, believes the team are in a good position to make a good call on strategy to help them reach the points paying positions.

“We will be able to fight from P13 tomorrow, but it’s difficult to overtake here and usually the races become a bit like a train.

“However, the race is long so maybe there will be different strategy calls we can make which will help us.

“The start will be quite important, so we’ll see where we are and we will try and do as good a race as possible.” 

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