Toro Rosso
Max Verstappen: “I’m happy with today’s race, I think we did everything we could and had some good fights. I enjoyed every lap to be honest! The car worked really well and especially the last few laps were quite exciting. We were very close to ending in P7, but I’m very happy with P8, it’s a great result for the whole team. We’ve learned more about the tyres and I think that the updates we brought are positive, so all in all, everything felt really good in the race today. I’m also happy to have finally scored some more points, especially here at the Red Bull Ring”
Carlos Sainz: “I was really enjoying it out there today, I was having a lot of fun, especially after those first few laps where everything went perfectly. I was just focused on moving forward, targeting the rivals in front. We were doing a very good race but unfortunately, after the pit-stop I ran out of power all of a sudden and my race finished there. It’s very disappointing, especially because we had managed to get into the top ten after only a couple of laps and I was very motivated. I think we could’ve achieved a positive result if this hadn’t happened, we certainly had the pace for it!”
Franz Tost (Team Principal): “The race started well for us today. Both drivers managed to do a good start, especially Carlos had a great first lap and moved up to P9. Max’s pace was strong and even though he wasn’t able to hold Bottas behind, the speed was good throughout the race. Unfortunately we lost some seconds behind Kvyat, which in the end cost us the seventh place as I’m convinced that if that hadn’t happened, we could’ve kept Maldonado behind. In the end Max crossed the line in P8, which means more points for the team, but we can’t be totally happy as our direct competitors scored more points than us. Carlos’ pace was also good, but unfortunately he had a technical problem which we now have to analyse. Hopefully we can prevent this from happening at the next race in Silverstone. I would also like to say that the car worked very well thanks to the upgrades we brought here, so hopefully we can continue improving on the performance side and finish the race in the points with both cars next time out.”
Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 track support leader: “A very strong race for Max, with a good result on a challenging track. We were able to extract the maximum from the car and he fought hard to earn the points. Unfortunately we had a problem with Carlos’ car. It started to lose electrical power and the lap times dropped off too much to remain on track. We will look at why so we can come back strongly in Silverstone.”
