Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Brake issues hamper Toro Rosso pair

Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were both affected by brake problems during Friday practice in Bahrain.

Toro Rosso has shown strong pace at all circuits so far this season but has been hampered with reliability issues, seeing both cars hit by problems in China as the team failed to score points. During the first practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix both cars ran competitively but struggled in FP2 and Verstappen says his lap times were hit by a lack of confidence under braking.

“It was a bit of an up-and-down day," Verstappen said. "I think the first practice in general was quite alright and I used it to get used to the track and didn’t take too many risks. Everything felt good and I like the track, so that’s important.

"Not being very happy with the set of brakes, during FP2 we decided to change it and luckily it all felt better towards the end of the session, but I carried on taking it easy. It was a bit of a scrappy practice but now we have all night to prepare for tomorrow and that’s what we’ll do."

Sainz said he suffered from a similar issue but he doesn't believe it will have a big impact on the rest of his weekend

“Even if we didn’t have much track time this morning in FP1 and had to face some brake issues during FP2, in general it’s been a decent Friday," Sainz said. "The car feels nice to drive and we don’t have any major problems, so we just need to keep working hard.”

Click here for Friday's gallery from the Bahrain Grand Prix

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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.