Toro Rosso, Sainz: “Really positive last qualifying of the season”

Despite the set-up problems experienced yesterday, Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen managed to achieve an excellent qualifying during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the last round of this 2015 Formula One world championship. The Toro Rosso Spaniard completed a great lap during the second qualifying heat, thus managing to enter the third and final qualifying session. A different story, however, for Max Verstappen, who was kicked out of Q3 by his teammate himself. The eighteen-year-old Dutchman failed to beat Carlos Sainz's son by just 32 thousandths, closing the final qualifying of the season in eleventh position.

Here are the words of Carlos Sainz: “I'm very happy and satisfied with how today went, especially after a difficult day like yesterday! I really needed a smooth Saturday. During the third free practice session, I managed to gain confidence with the car and adjust the set-up as I wanted. Today's qualifying was tough, as I had to get used to the particular light conditions at sunset and I had to get the right references when braking, something I wasn't able to do yesterday, not having completed PL2. For me it was important to be able to have a good qualifying. I kept calm and pulled off a great lap at the right time. It wasn't easy to get into Q3, but we did it and that's a great thing!”

Here are the words of Max Verstappen: “It certainly wasn't the easiest of days, but we tried to do our best and we can be satisfied with the result. In today's qualifying we maximized the car's potential. All the runs were good, except the last one in Q2. We have a very specific method of preparing the fast lap, but I found myself in traffic and had to slow down, losing the right tire temperature. This took away my confidence at the first braking point and I lost about a tenth... But, all things considered, eleventh is still a good position to start the race from tomorrow. I will be the first to have new tires and this promises well, taking into account that this track is very hard on the tyres. I think we have good race pace, it will be interesting tomorrow… I can't wait!”.

Roberto Valenti
Twitter: @RobertoVal94