Toro Rosso forced to curtail running due to punctures

Toro Rosso endured a miserable end to the season in Abu Dhabi last weekend, with the team forced to stop running in second practice due to safety concerns.

Danill Kvyat suffered two punctures during Friday practice and, with Carlos Sainz suffering a similar issue at Austin, it was decided between the team and the FIA that it would stop running.

“This is the first time the team and the FIA took the decision to not let me run because of safety concerns,” said Sainz. “It is something I cannot criticise, I cannot regret as you are putting a lot of danger into the situation.”

Toro Rosso cut away some of the bodywork at the rear of the car ahead of a return to track action but the lost practice time led to a difficult qualifying with Kvyat lining up 17th and Sainz 21st. The race wasn’t much better with both cars retiring with gearbox issues.

Sainz added: “We’ve done everything we can, but the problem still is that we don’t know the cause of the punctures. You’re always going to try to tune the whole car up to make sure it doesn’t happen, but without knowing the cause you’re not going to be 100 per cent sure it won’t happen again.”