In typical Spa Francorchamps conditions here in Belgium this afternoon, Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari drove superbly to bring his STR5 home in tenth place, securing the final point of the afternoon. With rain falling intermittently from the opening lap to the chequered flag, the young Spaniard kept it together and is now eagerly awaiting the next round at Monza, the team’s hone race, in two weeks time.
“I have had a good weekend and already I was happy with my performance in qualifying yesterday while today, I had the most exciting race of my career. It was very difficult to make the right call on tyre choice. I think that within our team’s potential, today’s performance was not too bad and I am delighted to have picked up another point. I can’t wait for Monza now and the chance to put on a good show for all the people from our factory who will be there to watch the race.”
Unfortunately for teammate Sebastien Buemi, chaos at the start saw him racing in a damaged car and unable to exploit the same same potential, leaving his to bring it home in the best possible position, thirteenth.
“I managed to get a very good start, but then at the first corner, someone ran into me, which cut my left rear tyre and damaged the diffuser, so I tried all sorts of things like locking the differential and changing the front wing settings to compensate, as I was oversteering a huge amount. It cost me a lot in terms of pace, because at times the car was undriveable. So unfortunately, I could not do better than this, which is a shame, as this was a race where I could have been in the hunt for points. That’s racing.”
“A fantastic Formula 1 race from start to finish, with some great battles throughout the field and then, as usual in Spa, the rain played its part, coming and going, causing some interesting scenarios. Both our drivers made a good start, but unfortunately, Buemi was hit by someone which damaged his left rear tyre and he had to pit and then he lost more time coming in for the intermediate tyres,” added Franz Tost.
“We assume that the collision also damaged his floor, which compromised his performance for the rest of the race. Jaime drove a good race, however his first stop for intermediates was unnecessary, but everyone can be clever with hindsight. Without this extra visit to the pits, he could have finished higher up the order, securing a really good result, because his pace was fantastic, with good lap times.”
“In the closing stages, he also did a very good job of defending his position against Liuzzi, who had the advantage of being on extreme rain tyres, while Jaime was on the intermediates. It’s nice to pick up a point, generally our performance level was not bad, so now let’s see what we can do at our home race in Monza.”
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