Qualifying - German GP report: Toro Rosso Ferrari

Carlos Sainz

3 grid position penalty for tomorrow’s race

“A very difficult qualifying session. We are struggling here in Hockenheim – we always knew that a power circuit like this one was going to be a challenge for us, as we are not quick enough on the straights. Having said that, I think I put in a very good lap. I feel good in the car and the package is working, but this is the most we could extract from the car today. Tomorrow we will try and fight for more points – of course it won’t be easy but we will surely give it our all and try and finish as high up as possible; it would be good to go on holiday with a few more points in the bag!”

Daniil Kvyat

“I’m disappointed, I didn’t drive well in today’s qualifying session and my last lap wasn’t good enough to get through to Q2 – I lost my references, made some mistakes and just couldn’t put a good lap together. We looked promising yesterday, but today when it really mattered we were just not there. I’m upset and I’m not at my usual level, that’s for sure – we all go through some periods where we don’t feel good in the car and that’s where I am now. I just need to have a bit of a better understanding of what’s going on around me and try and come to some conclusions in order to feel confident in the car again. It’s a tough task to get back to my level, but I’m young and I’m sure we will find some answers soon. The good thing is that I feel that the solution isn’t that far away… We had a good Friday yesterday for the first time in a while, so we need to look into that. Tomorrow is the race and we will try to fight our way back. I haven’t got much to lose so I will just go for it!”

Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer)

“A very difficult Saturday for us. It was clearly a very tight pack in the mid field today. Unfortunately for Daniil he had two scrappy runs in Q1, the second of which had a slow first sector with a small mistake in T1. This proved very costly as it was enough to mean he didn’t make Q2. Carlos’s story was a bit happier in Q1, where he got through into Q2 in 12th place, but unfortunately he needed two sets of tyres to do this when we had hoped to make it through on one. Then, in Q2, he did two pretty clean laps but our sector 2 times were simply not strong enough and he finished P13. Of the midfield pack the Force Indias were strong today and the Haas did a particularly good job, with Gutierrez to be in front of us. We were very close with the two McLarens and Carlos was placed between them. Unfortunately he did baulk Massa in T2 on his first run in Q2, which now means a 3 grid position penalty. We will make sure that our apologies are given.”