Formula One news

Strong pace for Toro Rosso

Scuderia Toro Rosso has enjoyed a promising start to its Chinese Grand Prix weekend, with both drivers finishing in the top fifteen after practice sessions one and two on Friday. If the Austrian-Italian squad is able to achieve the same positions on Saturday, Bourdais and Buemi will be in good shape to make the second round of qualifying, if not the third.

"Our weekend seems to have started off quite well," said Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais, who finished tenth in both sessions. "We have made progress in terms of understanding the car and using it to its best. There is still some work to do, specifically in terms of making better use of the option tyre (the softer of the two Bridgestone compounds available, this weekend the Super Soft). Actually, I was quite surprised to see how well they are holding up and they definitely have more than one lap in them - I'm not saying we'll run them for 30 laps, but it's much better than expected. We can definitely see that the small updates we have on the car since Malaysia are working well."

The team's other Sébastien wasn't quite so far up the timesheets, but still performed well in only the third Friday of his Formula One career. "It's my first time here, and beforehand I spent a lot of time on the Red Bull Technology Simulator - it was definitely a big help and I plan to use it more in the future," said Buemi. "It is difficult to quantify, but for sure it helps. I had a technical problem in the morning which cost me some time, but everything was back to normal this afternoon and we were able to make a step forward." Having finished 13th and 15th in the Friday sessions, a failure to qualifying for the second phase in Kuala Lumpur may not be repeated in Shanghai. "We look more competitive than in Malaysia, and we are definitely improving," the Swiss driver continued. "I didn't get a perfect lap today, so I think I can do a lot better tomorrow. I like the track - it's very big, very new, very everything!"

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