Practice report

Good Friday practice for Toro Rosso at Silverstone

Laurent Mekies (Head of Vehicle Performance): "The results from today would indicate we are progressing steadily in relative terms from race to race."

Daniel Ricciardo (FP2: best lap: 1:33.171, pos. 6th, 34 laps): “I decided to do quite a few laps in the rain this morning, as I felt the track was safe enough and you can always learn something in those tricky conditions and I think it pleased the fans as well!

Daniel Ricciardo, Scuderia Toro Rosso STR8

Photo by: XPB Images

This afternoon, we were pretty good in the dry, getting a good run on the Hard compound and improved further on the Medium. However, I had hoped our long run would be better, so we definitely have more work to do overnight, but generally a positive day.”

Jean-Eric Vergne (FP2: Best lap: 1:33.290, pos. 7th, 38 laps): “This afternoon, as soon as I left the garage, I could tell the car felt very good. It was easy to push and my lap times were good.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to relax, far from it and we will be working hard tonight to look at all the data to see how we can improve.

I feel we have a chance here to do well over the rest of the weekend. Coming to this track which is so different to the last two ones we have raced on, I would say today’s performance has been a pleasant surprise.”

Laurent Mekies (Head of Vehicle Performance): “This has been another good Friday for us. The morning session was held in very wet conditions, but we still felt the need to go out on track to check the car in this situation: lately we have had quite a lot of running on Intermediates, but less so on Extremes, so it was a useful exercise.

In the afternoon, we had to squeeze our programme to make up for the lost time in the morning. We had a few new aero parts to evaluate, as well as trying some changes on the mechanical side. We shared the workload between the two cars.

The results from today would indicate we are progressing steadily in relative terms from race to race. Now we must study all the data, knowing we can expect rather different and drier conditions for the next two days, so tonight we will try and put everything together to continue to move forward tomorrow.”