Practice report

Toro Rosso: A positive Friday in Austria

Jean-Eric Vergne: “I think it was a positive Friday and I’m happy with my car."

Jean-Eric Vergne (FP1: 1:12.364, pos. 10th, 30 laps / FP2: 1:10.972, pos. 10th, 39 laps): “I think it was a positive Friday and I’m happy with my car. We brought many new parts and updates here in Austria, which means we had a lot to test and understand today. I have to say that the situation looks good. We have to put all the data together overnight but I believe we have a good potential for improvement for FP3 and particularly for qualifying tomorrow”

Daniil Kvyat (FP1:1:12.372, pos. 12th, 35 laps / FP2: 1:11.261, pos. 12th, 45 laps): "I really enjoyed driving this track today, it’s definitely among my favourites on the calendar, with heavy braking points, some fast and medium speed corners which are good fun. As for today’s sessions, I was hoping for a better pace here but on the positive side I’m sure there is still a big margin of improvement. We have gone through a good programme today, so I’m confident we can have a strong remaining weekend.”

Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer): “We have got some updates on the car and we went through a good programme to evaluate them all. We are pretty pleased with the results, even thou there is still some work to do, analyse everything overnight and improve further our performance tomorrow. It’s very close where we are, the field is really tight but overall we are satisfied. Considering that this is a track where we haven’t been to for a long time, generally our two drivers settled in very well and quickly. If we can tidy up just a little tiny bits we should look good tomorrow.”

Ricardo Penteado (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): “With such a short lap and fast lap time we are super busy all the time here! The Power Units are behaving well. The major point to consider here is the altitude – at around 700m above sea level we are at only 935mbar ambient pressure so we have to pay considerable attention to the turbocompressor as it is spinning much higher. Everything was under control and the new car package seems good. We hope we can put both cars in the top 10 tomorrow.”