Franz Tost: “Max attacked and did a good race”

Published on 11 October 2015 by Niels Hendrix

Franz Tost, team principal of Scuderia Toro Rosso, says after the Russian Grand Prix: “It was a very difficult and emotional race weekend for the team, with a lot of ups and downs. Of course, Carlos’ crash in yesterday’s FP3 was the worst moment, especially the minutes just after the accident, when we didn’t know what had happened as we lost all radio connections. Fortunately, everybody was delighted once we found out he wasn’t injured and that he was in a position to race today.”

Tost continues: “Max did a very good qualifying yesterday, finishing in P9, which showed the potential of the car. Today in the race, unfortunately he wasn’t able to avoid the collision between Ericsson and Hulkenberg at turn two, as he was hit and damaged his tyre. He came back to the pits and we changed it, but we also saw that the floor and the rear suspension were also damaged, so his race was compromised because of this. He attacked and did a good race, but in the end he couldn’t do more than finish in P11 unfortunately.”

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 track support leader, adds: “First of all, everyone is really happy that Carlos was fine and able to participate to the race after his huge crash yesterday. I would like also to say a big thank you to our mechanics who did a great job to rebuild the car with a new power unit that worked well in the race without any issues. Obviously we are disappointed with the final results but the performance of the car in normal conditions was good, which is a positive on a demanding circuit. Reliability was also there yet again here so we have to keep it in that sweet spot until the end of the season.”