Daniel Ricciardo is confident Toro Rosso will not be tagged as a backmarker – Formula 1 news
Daniel Ricciardo is confident that Toro Rosso will not be a backmarker in the 2012 season.
Toro Rosso has been struggling in the current season but that has been the nature of the season. The unpredictability has made things harder for some teams and benefitted others. Caterham has started to show some promise and Toro Rosso may lose out their
position to them if the team keeps up with its downward spiral.
On the other hand, Caterham is improving with each race. The latest update package according to their driver Heikki Kovalainen is going to have a major impact on the performance of the car and will improve the results of the team considerably.
Caterham did very well at the European Grand Prix and are gunning to have similar or better results at the British Grand Prix.
Ricciardo was asked by ESPNF1 if he was worried about the struggles of the team to make it through the first knockout round of qualifying ahead of their rivals Caterham.
“No, not at all. Although I do believe they've got some more updates for Silverstone - some that they are quite modest about - and it will probably work and they had good pace in Valencia,” he said. “I think with overall pace we're still a fair bit in front,
it's just the qualifying we have to soak a bit more out of. I think it's between us drivers and also understanding a bit more with the tyres. But then our race pace still seems to be quite a bit stronger than theirs. I think if we don't get on top of our qualifying
they will have more opportunities to be in front of us, but I still think our race pace will clearly be better than theirs.”
Ricciardo has been the leading driver for the team and has only been out-qualified by his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne once in the season. He said he will work hard to keep that advantage as well.
He added that teamwork is also very important and that is why they cannot afford to push each other too hard. It should remain healthy to challenge rival teams.
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