Toro Rosso apologise to Sainz over failures

2015 Belgian Grand Prix

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has apologised to driver Carlos Sainz Jnr after technical problems spoiled his race for the fourth weekend in a row.

“I’d like to apologise to Carlos for this, as it’s now the fourth race in a row where he can’t finish a race because of technical problems,” said Tost after today’s race.

“We didn’t have a good start to the race because an electrical problem related to the engine on Carlos’ car meant we had to bring the car into the garage before the race had even started. We fixed the issue with the cable and he was able to rejoin the race, but he was already a couple of laps behind.

“We decided to continue the race because in Spa you never know what can happen, and maybe a Safety Car or some rain could’ve helped us, but unfortunately this never happened, so with 11 laps to go we called him in to save some engine mileage.”

Sainz said his latest failure left him “desperate to finish a race”.

“During the formation lap I felt I had no power, so I had to box. Luckily they managed to solve the issue and I was able to go out and race, but being two laps down there wasn’t much I could fight for.”

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    Keith Collantine
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    11 comments on “Toro Rosso apologise to Sainz over failures”

    1. Not fair though, it happens to one car per period, suprisingly they finished like 3 times with both cars, 1 with both in points

    2. Appaling reliability by Toro Rosso again. Seriously this is something not seen since the 1990’s. There was almost no race without problems for one or both drivers. Sainz had had more but MV also had his share. What good is it to have a car in Q3 a lot of times, if you rarely can capitalize? To finish first, first you have to finish

      Back to the drawing board STR!

      1. @montreal95 given that the majority of Sainz’s DNFs have been engine related, shouldn’t it be “back to the drawing board Renault”?

        1. @tdog No. RBR also have the Renault engine yet they had about half of the problems STR had. Clearly their sleek packaging that contributes to their pace is also detrimental to reliability

          Besides, 40% of Sainz DNF’s were not the engine.

    3. to me it seems verstappen usually has his technical gremlins earlier in the weekend and not on race day, while sainz always has them in the race and never before.

      1. Apart from Australia, China and Bahrain you mean? Besides, all those engine penalties that Verstappen got (and Sainz not) add up too.

        1. @patrickl if i remember correctly, max would’ve only scored in China and maybe Bahrain. Meanwhile in Austria and Silverstone Carlos may have scored but in Hungary was where he lost it big time. First, stupid team strategy cost him 2 places and they gave max first call despite being behind Carlos (which is wrong) and then his bloody car failed so he couldve finished 4th (where max ended up) and in Belgium I reckon he wouldve finished just behind Massa. He’s lost more than he’s gained this season

          1. Max lost in Australia at least 7th and possible 6th, in China 8th, and in Bahrain nothing (both cars were bad over there).

            In both Austria and Silverstone Carlos his race pace would not have brought him anything more as 9th or 10th. In Hungary 7th would have been the highest, if the team had chosen to change his tyres under the SC (but it still could have been only just 9th), but because they didn’t, 9th would have been the highest.

            Carlos was 2 laps down in Belgium, but as usual, after his car was fixed, his race pace would have landed him only 10th at the end of the race. Carlos does well in single fast laps, but it’s the difference in race pace which is significantly between them.

            1. Shouldn´t we assume that Carlos would´ve been in 3rd or 4th position had Verstappen´s strategy been given to him in Hungary? They were at the same piece of tarmac before the first call to pits.

            2. I calculated what actually would have happened without Carlos’s mechanical failure.

              Max got the first call to pit because of his tyres being 6 laps older as the ones Carlos had. And in hindsight that pit stop call was the right one, because it brought the team the most amount of points.

              People seem to forget that drivers are being hired to bring in as much points for the team as they can, which also means that if your teammate is faster, letting him pass by most likely brings in the most amount of points. Only for the delicate ego’s of drivers that can be a little bit hard too take in, but they get paid generously to do a job. A team isn’t there to facilitate a driver to become WDC, it’s there to survive and become successful in F1 and hires drivers to help them accomplish that (a lot of drivers simply don’t seem to understand how that works (Kvyat needed to the same with Ricciardo too in Hungary (does Carlos really think it will be any different if he goes to the main team…?)).

              So it might sound a bit crude, but F1 isn’t for the gentlest of souls, and be the fastest of the two or those things will happen (the prioritized driver should always be the one who’s fastest on track at that time, and that goes both ways (maybe the Team Principals should be more clear pre-season to their drivers about that)).

      2. Verstappen’s mechanical failures during the weekend (costing him also a lot of good qualifying sessions) : Engine 7 times, Brakes 2 times, and 2 times an engine grid penalty.

        Sainz : Engine 4 times in a race (all qualifying run ups and sessions were near “perfect” for Carlos).

        And I’m not even going to start about all the botched pit stops and strategic mishaps of the team. Both have gotten way more problems as they should have gotten, and both of them in the races too.

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