Toro Rosso did not have a great Sunday in Abu Dhabi, joining Lotus, Virgin and HRT at the back of the timesheets...
Toro Rosso:
Jaime Alguersuari: "I am very disappointed with the outcome of this weekend, because we had opted for a strategy in terms of aerodynamics that appeared to be the best in terms of ease of overtaking in the race. However, after the first four or five laps, I seemed to pick up some tyre degradation and I was losing the rear end. Then came the key moment in my race, when there was a mistake in the pit stop, which cost me a lot of time and dropped me down the order, from which I could not recover. Today, P10 was possible, because I had a good pace on the new Options, even if I am not sure that we could have caught the Force Indias. I am sure Brazil will suit us better, so I am looking forward to that and the chance for all of us to do a better job."
Sebastien Buemi: "I had to retire because of a loss of fluid from the hydraulic system, which I first felt through the lack of power steering, as this is what makes the most demand on the hydraulics. After that, I could not change gear so there was nothing to do but bring the car into the pits and retire. It is such a shame, because I was having a good race up to that point. Just before it happened, I had passed Di Resta in the Force India and was hoping to start fighting Schumacher and Sutil, which means that a finish somewhere between seventh and ninth should have been possible tonight. Now we have just one more opportunity to try and score some more points, so I can't wait to get to Brazil to try and end the season with a good result."
Team Lotus:
Heikki Kovalainen: "Another pretty good start and from there the whole race was straightforward. I didn't have any issues for the whole race, the pitstops were good and the strategy worked out exactly was we'd planned, so across the whole weekend this has been another strong event for us. What seems to be happening is that in the first couple of stints, as the race sort of settles down, we are able to keep up with the cars ahead, and that's obviously a sign of how we have progressed, and that's again what happened here. When we went onto the primes for the last stint the pace obviously dropped a bit but we had another strong push to the end, with Senna losing time on his final set of tyres, and that points to us being able to fight much more closely next year. For now we have one race left, so we'll shift the focus now to Brazil and make sure we finish the season as strongly as we have been doing since Singapore."
Jarno Trulli: "I lost a few places at the start with clutch slip, but within a few laps I had got past the cars we needed to fight and then focused on making sure I got the car to the end of the race. The second stint was pretty strong, but then on the last stint on the hard tyres I was struggling to get them up to temperature so I couldn't really push any more. This has been a bit of a tough weekend. I came here with a bit of a fever and then losing time in P3 obviously set me back as well, but now I want to make sure I have as good a race as possible in Brazil and help the team secure 10th place."
Virgin:
Timo Glock: "Overall it was quite a good race today. I had a strong start, the speed was not too bad and I was in front of a couple of quicker guys, even though in the end they caught us up. I just drove my race and my engineer kept me updated about the gap to the guys behind, which was quite easy to manage. In the second pit-stop I think Ricciardo pushed a bit more, but I still managed to stay in front of him as well as keeping an eye on the rear tyres. In the end I got the best out of the car even though I have to say it was a bit difficult with the last set of tyres because the Medium compound combined with all the blue flags made it difficult to get them up to temperature. But it was a good race and the team did a good job."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "What a shame! I had a good start and was fighting hard against the HRTs, but I had a problem with the brakes and that was my race over. But we will work hard and continue to be motivated to finish the season in Brazil on a high."
HRT:
Tonio Liuzzi: "The car was suffering from the same balance problems as yesterday. The team worked on the issue all night to try and fix it but, unfortunately, the car wasn't perfectly balanced today. There was understeer on left turns and oversteer on right turns which meant that it was hard to achieve a good race pace. We got off to a good start and made up a few positions but it was a difficult challenge. Still, I pushed until the very end and got the car past the checkered flag which is a positive thing. It was a difficult race but we got a decent result."
Daniel Ricciardo: "I had a pretty good take off at the start, passing Glock and getting right behind Trulli, and then I stayed on the inside for turn 1, which was probably a mistake as Glock overtook me on the outside. There were a few moves that I should have maybe committed to a bit stronger. The pace was good but I lost a few places at the start and had to play catch up. I closed the gap with Tonio but then I couldn't get past him. For the second stint I was able to keep up with Glock. I was then caught in traffic and, three laps from the end, my car stopped. It was a shame to end the race prematurely but, overall, the pace was good and I was setting some good times so that's something to take into the next race."
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