Autosportfoto

Japanese Grand Prix race report

The Japanese Grand Prix yielded a double points finish for the Renault-powered Scuderia Toro Rosso team. Max Verstappen finished in ninth, with team-mate Carlos Sainz tenth.

Infiniti Red Bull Racing endured a difficult race. Daniil Kvyat started from the pitlane but made the most of his early pit stops to finish in 13th. Daniel Ricciardo suffered a puncture at the race start and finished in 15th.

Key race points:
Carlos Sainz raced in the top ten for the first half of the race but lost positions when he clipped his front wing and required a wing change. He fought back to ninth, but was overtaken by Verstappen on lap 45 to finish in tenth.
Max Verstappen started from 17th and made a good start to fight with the Saubers and McLaren by his first stop. A move on Alonso put him in the top 10, which he was able to maintain until the end of the race. He took Sainz for position later on.
Daniil Kvyat finished in 13th despite starting from the pitlane following his qualifying accident. He was able to use a creative pit strategy to gain position.

Ricciardo and Felipe Massa made contact at the start of the race, with both suffering punctures. Ricciardo's stop cost him one lap, which he was not able to regain. He caught the two Manor cars and then Button to finish in 15th.
Rémi Taffin, Director of Operations:

A reasonable race with some points for Toro Rosso. Both drivers drove well and had clean battles with several other cars and then ultimately each other. Red Bull unfortunately had a painful race, but we had no reliability issues so were at least able to save engines for the future. Let's hope Russia brings more fortune.

Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director:
An unspectacular result for us today. The starting positions were always going to make things hard, but we made the most of the opportunities. The power units have behaved well on the whole and if we can start higher up the order at the next race in Russia we should have a much better reflection of the true performance of the power unit at this point in the season.