Scuderia Toro Rosso's
sensational sixth place on the grid for Jaime
Alguersuari didn't live up to the promise come raceday
in Belgium yesterday and the Spanish youngster was
eliminated on the opening lap, while team mate Sebastien
Buemi, who had started from eleventh place on the grid,
was gone from the action after six laps of the 44 lap
race.
That had been
Alguersuari's best ever qualifying performance and he
was the innocent victim in a tangle with Renault's Bruno
Senna who was making his debut for the French team in
Spa. Meanwhile Alguersuari's Swiss team mate was also in
the wars early on and after a flying start he was punted
in the rear by the similarly customer Ferrari-powered
Sauber of Sergio Perez.
That leaves Scuderia
Toro Rosso remaining on 22 points in the F1
Constructors' Championship after its no score showing in
yesterday's Belgian Grand Prix, and in eighth place in
the standings, 10 points behind Force India-Mercedes (32
points) and 17 points ahead of Williams-Cosworth (5
points). The next race on the F1 calendar in a
fortnight's time will be Toro Rosso's 'home' grand prix
at Monza.
SEBASTIEN
BUEMI (STR6-03) Retired
"I got a great start, moving up
from eleventh on the grid to sixth after the first
corner, which was fantastic. I was able to follow the
pace of Alonso and Hamilton. Then Perez tried to pass me
and simply drove into the back of me, which completed
destroyed my rear wing and I had no option but to bring
the car back to the pits to retire. I really can’t
understand what he was doing, as I was clearly ahead of
him: it was as though he forgot to brake. Next, we come
to the team’s home race in Monza and, as our car seems
to have made progress in performance terms, let’s see
what we can do there."
JAIME ALGUERSUARI (STR6-02)
Retired
"I don’t want to speak badly
about any other driver as it’s not my style, but I think
the situation was quite clear to everyone. Going into
the hairpin after the start, I was in the middle with
Senna on my inside and Fernando on my outside and Senna
completely missed his braking point and hit me which
pushed me into the path of the Ferrari. However, there
are many positive things we can take out of this
weekend, as we clearly had a car capable of scoring many
points today, which is a tribute to all the hard work of
the team. I feel sorry for the guys, because starting
sixth on the grid is not an everyday occurrence for us.
Now I am looking forward to the next race in Monza, as I
see no reason why we cannot be competitive there and
score more points."
Franz Tost (Team Principal)
"Both our drivers had very
short races, before being knocked out in incidents that
were not their fault, a view supported by the race
officials, who penalised Senna and Perez for the
collisions with Jaime and Sebastien respectively. Of
course, this is very disappointing given our strong
showing in qualifying, which meant we were hoping to
score a good number of points today. However, on the
positive side, both our drivers performed very well
throughout the weekend and all the updates introduced on
the STR6 appear to have delivered an increase in
performance. Given all the hard work completed over the
past few weeks prior to the break, in the factory at
Faenza and the wind tunnel in Bicester, I think everyone
at Scuderia Toro Rosso deserved a better reward than to
see both cars go out of the race so early. However, our
pace here was encouraging and means we can look forward
to trying again in two weeks time, for what is our home
race at Monza."
