Yesterday's
qualifying promise didn't translate into race day points
for Toro Rosso as both cars went backwards right from
the start of this afternoon's Chinese Grand Prix in
Shanghai: Jaime Alguersuari disappearing from the fray
after losing a wheel nut following a botched pit stop
while team mate Sebastien Buemi dropped time in the
sister Ferrari V8-powered STR6 single-seater with an
unscheduled front wing change.
Sebastien Buemi (STR6-02) Pos.
14th
“Not the result we were
expecting so I am a bit disappointed and frustrated that
I failed to score points, having started from a points
position. I don’t really know what happened at the
start, as I had a poor start even though from my point
of view I think I did everything right, so I would like
to see the data, because I had a lot of wheelspin. After
that, I got passed by Heidfeld and then, at a certain
point, I started to feel a lot of understeer, to the
point where it was getting very difficult to drive the
car, so we decided to change the front wing. That meant
an extra pit stop and from then on my race was
compromised. We could have done a lot better without
that, but this is how it ended and all we can do now is
see how we can make a step forward for Turkey.”
Jaime Alguersuari
(STR6-03) Retired
“From quite early on I was
struggling with grip from the rear tyres, so we decided
to come in earlier than planned for the first stop to
try and fight back for the ground lost at the start.
Then, immediately after leaving the pits, I felt the car
was very unstable and then I lost a wheel nut and the
wheel came off, so there was nothing I could do. After
my best qualifying position I was hoping for better even
if we knew we would be using quite worn tyres after
qualifying, so we had started on my worst set of tyres
to try and have an edge later in the race, but it was
not to be.”
Laurent Mekies
(Chief Engineer)
“Neither car got a great start,
losing us the benefit of our strong qualifying
performance. After that, we brought Jaime in fairly
early to have him running a three stop strategy. But we
had to retire the car soon after the pit stop as we lost
a wheel. At the moment, we are examining the exact cause
of this incident. Sebastien came in for his first tyre
change a few laps later when we discovered that he had
some front wing damage, so we called him in again to
change the nose as he could not continue like that. From
then on, he drove a strong race on a two stop strategy,
which was our only chance to get us back in the rhythm
of the race after the time lost just 15 laps after the
start. He drove well, racing the Williams, getting
Maldonaldo and finishing right on Barrichello’s
gearbox.”
