Reactions Tost and Renault after Chinese GP

Published on 12 April 2015 by Stefan Meens

After a dissapointing Chinese Grand Prix in which Max Verstappen saw is eighth place go up on smoke and Carlos Sainz finished oustide the top ten, Scuderia Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost has mixed feelings. "The strategy with Max, who started on the option tyres, worked very well and he had a very strong first lap where he was able to overtake a few rivals. From then onwards he drove very competitively and showed a great performance by overtaking and controlling his direct competitors. Unfortunately, with four laps to go, we had an issue with the drivetrain which meant he had to retire. We now have to investigate what the exact reason is."

Regarding Carlos Sainz' race he said: "It was a pity to see him spin after his good start. Later on, he lost some more valuable time because his gearbox went into neutral and we now have to find out why this happened."

"For sure the race result is quite disappointing for us because the team showed a good performance and I think that we would have deserved to finish at least with Max in eighth position. But this is Formula 1 and this is part of the game. As we know that we have a fast car, we are now looking forward to the Bahrain Grand Prix next week, where we will hopefully have a successful race weekend", comcluded Tost.

Meanwhile Renault Sport F1 track support leader Cedrik Staudohar echoed the Austrian's mixed feelings. "Until the race we had had a relatively good weekend. We had not made the most of qualifying, but Max’ race pace was very impressive and he was able to catch and overtake several cars and move up into the top ten. Carlos had a spin early on in the race and struggled to recover with the traffic. Max’ problem appears to be an ICE failure that happened suddenly. We’ve not had this problem before in either the dyno or on track and need to look into it for Bahrain.”