Toro Rosso report from qualifying for the British Grand Prix, Round 10 of the 2019 Formula 1 World Championship, at Silverstone.
Alexander Albon
- Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:26.976, pos. 10th, 17 laps
- Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:26.482, (Q2) 1:26.403, (Q3) 1.26.345 pos. 9th
“I’m happy with that! We’ve always been in the top 10 this weekend but we knew the others would turn it up in Qualifying, our balance just got better and better through the weekend and it came together. After a tough couple of races, it’s really good to be back into Q3.
“I’m really happy with the car and I love this track, the car has been feeling good all weekend and when the track started to get more grip, I felt more comfortable and was able to get more performance from the car. Our race pace looked promising in FP2 yesterday and we were looking quite good with tyres, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it!
Daniil Kvyat
- Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:27.108, pos. 13th, 18 laps
- Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:26.721, pos.17th
“I think our car wasn’t in the right window today and I wasn’t really happy with the balance. This weekend has been a bit out of rhythm for me, so we need to analyse what happened to understand what we can do for tomorrow. We had flashes of improvement like in FP3, but when it came to Qualifying, the car wasn’t doing exactly what I wanted it to do. When the midfield is as tight as it is now, a tenth or two drops you out in Q1.”
Jody Egginton, Technical Director: “The car balance during Friday was reasonable on both sides of the garage with our long and short-run performance being ballpark and, as a result of this, the engineers have been able to focus their efforts to incremental improvements across all areas overnight.
“Car balance and performance was in line with the expectations in FP3 but Qualifying panned out very differently across the garage, with Dany not managing to escape Q1, whilst Alex made it to Q3 finishing in P9, which is a solid result.
“Whilst we are of course pleased with this result, we also need to understand what was preventing Dany from extracting the best from his car in Qualifying, as up to this point he had shown good pace. Our attention now shifts to preparing for the race tomorrow and there is a lot of work ahead for the strategy engineers tonight to define the best options for both drivers.
“Given our level of competitiveness so far this weekend, we are looking to continue this trend tomorrow in what we feel will be an exciting race.”