Sebastien Buemi
pipped his team mate Jaime Alguersuari to thirteenth
spot in the Malaysian Grand Prix this afternoon after
overcoming a stop-go penalty after a race where the Toro
Rosso pair remained firmly rooted in the midfield; the
duo eventually coming home one lap down. The pair had
started from 12th and 13th place on the grid with the
Swiss driver edging his Spanish team mate.
Jaime Alguersuari (STR6-03) Pos.
14th
“I need to analyse this race
with the engineers, because to be honest, I don’t really
understand what happened: we were slow and the tyre
degradation was very high, higher than on Friday. I
struggled to clean the graining off the front tyres and
was losing performance with every passing lap. On the
positive side, I made a good start, gaining a few
places. But soon I found I could not keep up with the
guys in front. Given the difficulties I had, I feel that
finishing the race was in itself an achievement and the
best I could do today.”
Sebastien Buemi (STR6-02)
Pos. 13th
“I made a good start, passing
Rosberg and was running well, closing up on Kobayashi
and Schumacher, but at my first pit stop, I had the
impression that the Pit Lane Speed Limiter had not been
engaged. I immediately pressed it again, which
deactivated it, so I speeded in the pit lane and picked
up a ten second stop-go penalty, which I felt was a bit
severe, as usually you get a drive-through penalty which
loses you less time. After that I gave it my best shot
but it was not enough to get a reward for the work, as I
felt we could have got the Force Indias and at least
finished ninth. I only changed tyres twice and it’s true
that the last few laps were very difficult because of
the degradation.”
Franz Tost (Team Principal)
“Both drivers made a reasonably
good start, with Alguersuari completing the opening lap
in eleventh place, one ahead of Buemi. On lap 8,
Sebastien passed Jaime, showing a very good pace at this
stage of the race, closing up on those ahead of him. We
called him in for his first pit stop, but the Pit Lane
Speed Limiter was deactivated and because of this, he
exceeded the limit and was given a ten second stop-go
penalty. From then on Seb’s race was compromised and if
it had not been for that, he could have been in the
fight for ninth place. As for Jaime, he struggled with
rear tyre degradation and I think it would have helped
if we had put him on a three stop strategy, instead of
two. Fortunately, our closest competitors in the
championship did not pick up that many points today, so
we are still in reasonable shape in the Constructors’
classification. However, the mid-field is very close at
the moment, which means we have to do a better job,
starting in Shanghai in a few days time.”
