Team principal Franz Tost discusses the highs and the lows of 2014 to date, plus the drivers, the team, and what they all need to do to move up the grid in the second half of the season…
On the positive side…
Franz Tost: The pure speed of the STR9 is at quite a high level and in some races, our performance was really good. If we look back to the start, we immediately scored points with both cars in Melbourne and we were in the top ten again in Malaysia and China. Later in the first half we had a points finish in Canada and much more recently, we got both cars into the top ten at the British Grand Prix.
On the negative side…
FT: We are not where we should be in terms of reliability as we had eight non-finishes out of the first 18 car starts, or nine races. That is not good enough and it is something we must work on. In mitigation, some of this lack of reliability stems from the fact that serious pre-season problems with the power unit meant we were unable to complete many miles in winter testing. Effectively, we have encountered problems in races that normally would have been resolved before then. In addition, the team has not been perfect, making mistakes that led to faults like suspension failure. The solution is straightforward: we simply need to be more disciplined in order to avoid making further mistakes in the second half of the year. We need to sort out our reliability issues as soon as possible, so that we can finish in the points in the remaining races.
On car development…
FT: We will come up with some further developments, including a new aero package in Singapore, with more to come in the last part of the season. In addition, this is of course the time of year when we are increasing our efforts on next year’s car.
On Jean-Eric Vergne…
FT: He has suffered a lot with reliability issues, but when his car was running fine, he delivered good performances. Thanks to his experience he makes an important contribution to the team’s technical development and I’m convinced that there is still more to come from him.
On Daniil Kvyat…
FT: He is doing a very good job, taking into consideration how little mileage he was able to do before the season, he is driving very well, showing that he has natural speed. Equally importantly, he has had no accidents, nor has he made any mistakes. He is doing a fantastic job.
On the team…
FT: It has to improve, even if we are on the right road. But as I said before, on the reliability front, we have too many deficiencies. We are working hard on this area and I hope we will already see the results of our efforts during the course of this year.
On the factory…
FT: Back in Faenza, we have started work on the second part of our expansion plan, with the construction of Building STR4, making good progress with the programme running on time.
On the sport…
FT: There are many fans all over the world who seem to like the racing in its new format, with many positive comments. I believe Formula One is now going in the right direction, but as a whole there should be a bigger push to inform the public, so that the people who watch the races, either at the track or on TV, can have a better understanding of the new, exciting and futuristic technology that has come to Formula One.