Toro Rosso makes progress by going its own way

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Toro Rosso drivers Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat had an encouraging time on Thursday in Monaco. Both drivers finished FP2 in the top five, raising hopes of a better qualifying performance than Spain.

Kvyat was the fastest of the team's two drivers, and was feeling encouraged by the day's progress.

"A productive day," he said. "We did many laps today and they were all of good quality. We now have a lot of useful data to analyse before Saturday.

"The good news is that I’m happy with the balance of the car and we already look quite competitive.

"We now need to maintain this and get the car ready for qualifying and the race," he added.

"I think that we did what we needed to do on a Thursday in Monaco," was Sainz's view after the end of the day's activity.

"Building the speed up little by little and trying different configurations to give myself confidence with the car," Sainz continued. "After today’s two practice sessions it’s safe to say that we’re quite happy with everything.

"Obviously, from Thursday to Saturday a lot of things could change," the Spanish driver acknowledged. "We can’t let ourselves get carried away with today’s result. But it’s definitely a good starting point. I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend

Vettel takes charge in Monaco for FP2

The team's technical director James Key explained how Toro Rosso's lofty position in the FP2 timings was due to the way they had approached the day.

"We ran a slightly different tyre programme to other teams, concentrating on our own work, car set-up and understanding," he said. "During the afternoon session we made reasonable progress.

"Since our problems in Barcelona, where we had a number of updates, we’ve learned a little more on how to get a better balance with the car.

"Even if there are still some issues to resolve, the session went well," he added. "Both drivers seemed to be reasonably happy in FP1, so it was a case of fine-tuning the car a little bit for FP2.

"We will now be working hard overnight and tomorrow to look at the data and optimise the car as best we can."

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Gallery: All the pictures from Thursday in Monaco

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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.