STR Friday Practice Recap

Scuderia Toro Rosso heads into the back half of yet another back-to-back GP weekend stint looking to capitalize on their newfound momentum, which has more than doubled their WDC and WCC points tally in the past four races. Once again, the order of the day for Friday was test and assess, as the squad made no leap up the time sheets beyond their usual spot.

Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne would log 55 and 56 laps, respectively (I could find no break-down of those totals by session), swapping the P16 and P17 spots between them for the two Free Practice sessions. Daniel would post a 1:41.596 in FP1, which he would shave down to a 1:40.997 for FP2. Jean-Eric would clock in at 1:42.021 in FP1, then finish FP2 with a best time of 1:40.789.

Here are the team's post Friday comments:

Jean-Eric Vergne:

 "Today was a sort of anniversary for me, as it was in Korea that I started driving the Friday morning sessions for Toro Rosso and today, that went much better than a year ago, when I only completed 5 laps in very heavy rain. I can't say I thought about it much, as there was plenty of work to do today. It's a nice track and I felt quite comfortable here. During the day, we worked hard on finding the right balance of the car, between oversteer and understeer and I believe we made some progress over the course of the three hours. But there is more to come, so we must work hard overnight to see how we can move forward for the rest of the weekend."

Daniel Ricciardo:

"We made progress from the morning to the afternoon session and when I started FP2 on the Soft tyre I felt the balance of the car had improved. However, on the Supersoft, I encountered traffic on my first two laps and by the time I had a clear run on the third one, the tyres were no longer at their best. I did the long run on the option tyre and even if the pace was not what we wanted, it was not too far off, so all things considered the most positive factor is that we have an idea how to move forward for tomorrow and improve in time for qualifying."

Laurent Mekies, Chief Engineer:

"Overall, this Friday went smoothly for us, as we completed all our programme with no real issues. This track is quite difficult to assess, as it sees very little use over the year and therefore the grip level increases significantly as the track gets cleaner and evolves when more rubber is put down. It is a very interesting track with a mix of corner types. Daniel and Jean-Eric also increased their performance level as the day progressed and we have all the elements we need to improve the car tomorrow. We are not yet where we want to be in terms of car balance, but today we collected plenty of data to work on. The only slight inconvenience is that Daniel did not get a clean lap on his Option run, when he encountered a lot of traffic."