Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Tost wants to help Sainz show potential

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost wants to ensure Carlos Sainz can show his full potential in 2016.

Sainz was part of an all-rookie line-up at Toro Rosso last season alongside Max Verstappen, but it was the latter who grabbed the headlines with a number of exciting performances and strong results. Sainz finished the year 31 points behind his team-mate but Tost feels the Spaniard was unlucky with retirements and wasn't able to show what he is capable of.

“Most of the time he suffered with reliability issues that were the fault of the team, not his," Tost told F1i's Eric Silbermann. "Carlos had a very good season last year, showing a strong performance, which was especially clear if you look at the qualifying comparison between the two drivers.

“I expect him to have a good 2016 and I just hope we can provide him with a reliable car, which allows him to show his potential. The team has to improve its performance and produce better race results than last year, as we have to step forward. Last year our main problems came from reliability and we must work on that for this season, no excuses!”

Sainz failed to finish seven of the 19 races last year, including four consecutive retirements due to reliability problems in the middle of the year.

2016 will see Toro Rosso switch from Renault to Ferrari power units, though the team will use a year-old specification of engine.

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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.