16/09/2016
NEWS STORY
Uncertain whether an aero upgrade introduced at the German Grand Prix is helping or hindering progress, Toro Rosso, which has had a poor run in recent races, opted to split its driver’s strategy yesterday.
While Carlos Sainz ran with the new package in both sessions, teammate Daniil Kvyat ran the old.
In FP1, the Spaniard was 0.747s quicker, while in the second session the gap was 0.522s.
However, still unclear whether the new package is beneficial, and at a circuit where the team expects to be more competitive after the high-speed events at Spa and Monza, the Faenza team is to continue splitting its drivers strategies for the remainder of the weekend.
"This is the only bad news of today," Sainz told reporters, "both packages are working very similar, but the new package hasn't brought the performance, the couple of tenths, we were expecting from the upgrade.
"So the team intends keeping both packages different for tomorrow and the whole weekend to try and see if they can spot something more during the weekend because there is not one package which appears to be working better than the other. Both packages are working very similarly.
"It is not ideal," he admitted, "as it means the new package hasn't brought as much as we thought. Up until this package, everything we put on the car has worked, all the numbers we have brought to the track have been spot on. This is the first time that maybe didn't accomplish a lot of our expectations.
"That is it really. It shows there hasn't been a lot of development this year, but thank god not a lot of people have developed much because of next year's regulations."
However, according to the Spaniard it isn't all bad news.
"Finally we can see some happy faces because it is definitely a circuit that is suiting us much more," he said. "It is a circuit where you spend less than half the lap full throttle so we are losing time in less than half the lap, not like Monza where we were losing time for 80-90 percent of the lap.
"So much happier," he added, "we can run finally our downforce levels. We know they are high, so a bit back to where we should be and where we have to be."
Asked if Q3 is possible, he said: "It is a possibility but it will be much more difficult than today. We know we don't have a step on the engine tomorrow and as soon as Perez puts a lap together, the same as Hulkenberg, as they always do, as soon as Honda turns their pace up, today they were hiding probably a bit and had many issues, that Q3 spot will become much more difficult.
"But it is still encouraging that we are not going to be that far off the top ten, even if we don't achieve it," he concluded. And if there is a crazy race on Sunday, for sure we will be here to get some points. Tomorrow is possible Q3, I am not going to lie, but more difficult than today."
Check out our Friday gallery from Singapore, here.