James Key: “Max was very competitive”

Published on 03 May 2016 by Niels Hendrix

Technical director of Scuderia Toro Rosso, James Key, reflects on the Russian GP: “The race pace was there with both drivers and we had worked a lot with them on tyre management so they knew what they had to do. Max obviously had to start on his used supersofts from Q3 and we had to be a bit careful as we were not sure what to expect. Therefore, we had looked at both a one or a two stop strategy, in case he got bad degradation.”

“As it turned out, Max's tyre degradation was much better than at any other time in the weekend. He did the longest opening stint on supersofts and this left us in a much more comfortable position. He was in an easy sixth place, slightly shy of the Williams pace on the supersofts, a bit better on the softs. All he had to do was continue as he was doing. Max was very competitive and maybe he could have challenged Massa towards the end as he seemed to have higher tyre degradation than us.”

“However, we then suffered a power unit failure. Up to that point, our strategy, the tyre management and the driver's pace was all working really well. It was really frustrating and a shame as Max and team were doing exactly what they needed to do to score some decent points.”