Toro Rosso
Carlos Sainz
“I’m angry after today’s race, especially after having qualified in P6 yesterday. The race didn’t start well, as I had to avoid Max when the lights went out and, while doing that, a Force India suddenly came flying by and we collided. He took the worst part and I took the second worst part, damaging the right-hand side of my car. However, we still had decent pace after this and we were fighting for points, but we were forced to stop early as we were shown the black and orange flag and we re-joined the race behind too much traffic… Later on, halfway through the race, we had a problem with the Energy Recovery System and I had to run to the end trying to do the best I could. Days like today are very frustrating – nothing went right and when you have these kind of opportunities – starting P6 at a circuit like Singapore – you need to make sure you take them and today we didn’t. But I stay positive: the level of performance we’ve shown this weekend has been amazing and points would’ve certainly been possible tonight. It’s time to look forward to the next two races in Malaysia and Japan, where hopefully we’ll achieve a better result than today.”
Daniil Kvyat
“I think I did the most I could out there today – I had good fun and enjoyed some great battles! Unfortunately, after a first good stint things didn’t come together as expected… we ended up behind Perez and didn’t have enough straight-line speed to overtake him. I pushed until the very last centimetre and left my soul on the track – it’s a shame, but I’m happy to finish in the points again. In all fairness, the team did a good job after what’s been a tough period.”
Franz Tost, team principal
“After qualifying in P6 and P7, we of course expected more than only two points today. Unfortunately, Carlos got stuck behind Max Verstappen, who didn’t get a good start… Therefore, he had to move to the right-hand side where Nico Hulkenberg was, and they crashed into each other. This meant that Carlos’ car was damaged and we had to pit him early – he was shown the black and orange flag and we needed to remove the broken barge board. From then onwards, his race was quite compromised. Nevertheless, he managed to do some good lap times until the end of the race, even if we had a problem with his Energy Recovery System. Daniil did a very good race. He was fighting against Alonso and defended quite well against Max, but couldn’t overtake Perez at the end of the race because we simply miss some speed on the straights. Therefore, he finished in P9. Let’s shift our focus quickly towards the next couple of back-to-back races in Malaysia and Japan.”
