Melbourne 'a confidence boost' for Toro Rosso

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The Australian Grand Prix was a 'tricky' race according to Carlos Sainz, but he was feeling reassured after both Toro Rosso cars made it to the finish.

Sainz himself took eight place while his team mate Daniil Kvyat finished just behind him in ninth. Both cars were a lap off the lead, however.

"Obviously with this new generation of cars, we didn’t know really what to expect," said Sainz. "But to finish P8 is a decent result I’m happy with."

That said, he wasn't best pleased to drop a place to Force India's Sergio Perez during the afternoon's action.

"It’s a shame that soon after the pit-stop we lost the position to Perez," the Spanish driver admitted. "I struggled after having to let Daniil and the two Mercedes by, as my tyre temperatures dropped down a bit. It took me some time to get back into rhythm.

"Towards the end of the race I was coming fast, catching the Force India. I got quite close to overtaking him. If only there had been a few more laps, I could’ve given it a try."

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost agreed with his driver's analysis of the situation.

"Perez drove quite a solid race, overtaking both Carlos and Daniil, therefore finishing ahead of us," he said. "I think that, under other circumstances, we could have caught him back.

"At the end of the race, Carlos got quite close to the Force India driver in seventh place," Tost continued. "But because of the blue flags for the leading cars he lost contact. After that, there were not enough laps remaining for him to try and overtake the Mexican."

Overall, though, it had been a good say for Sainz.

"This race weekend was definitely a confidence boost for the whole team," he said. "To get both cars into Q3 yesterday and end with a double-points finish today is a really good start.

"Now we need to make sure we keep on going like this."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.