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Toro Rosso question massive Bahrain-China drop-off

14:38, 16 Apr 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

Toro Rosso and Pierre Gasly surprised the world by finishing fourth in Bahrain, but the team followed it up with a subpar performance in China, including the two cars of the team colliding during the race.

Friday's practice saw Pierre Gasly finish twelveth, which was a decent result for the team. Saturday, however, Gasly couldn't get out of Q1 as he had the seventeenth best time. Teammate Brendon Hartley made it to Q2 but ended in fifteenth.

"Friday was good," Gasly recalls.

"We were only a few tenths behind Renault, but then in the set-up, we completely went in the wrong direction."

"We didn't have time to reverse it and we lost a lot of speed because of it."

The bad performance at the Shanghai could also have been because of the track layout.

"We need to understand why we can not keep up the pace on long-lengthways with longer laps and longer runs," Hartley, a very good endurance driver, said.

"We've had plenty on the track in Bahrain, which has a more stop-and-go character faster, besides, it was much hotter and less windy there."

Hartley eventually didn't make it to the end of the race, which could have had something to do with the collision between him and Gasly. The Bahrain performance is looking more and more like a total fluke now.