Barcelona, March 2nd 2017.- The first week of winter testing came to an end today in Barcelona, although it was not in the fashion that both Carlos Sainz and Scuderia Toro Rosso could have desired. The Spaniard couldn’t run due to some technical difficulties, which indeed compromised the STR12 straight from its very first lap, completed by his teammate at the beginning of the day.

Carlos has completed 82 laps this week, a short amount of mileage after a day and a half behind the wheel. Toro Rosso has done 182 laps, 847 kilometers in total. It is less mileage than originally expected.
Carlos is disappointed, although he trusts his team. "We really wanted to drive today, because we thought it was interesting to test the soft compound for the very first time. The same goes for Pirelli’s wet tyres. We were interested on covering a decent amount of mileage to get to know the car in the best possible way, but in the end we had the opposite to that. We can’t be happy. Nevertheless, Toro Rosso and Renault are working flat-out to ensure that next week everything goes smoothly so we can focus over the four days that remain. The main objective is to get to Australia on top of our form and we are still on time".

Toro Rosso’s team boss Franz Tost is also optimistic. "Despite what we saw today, we have focused a lot of attention on reliability. I must say that we as Toro Rosso haven’t suffered any major issues. I am convinced that all the small details in the power train are non important and I’m quite optimistic that we can’t be in a better condition for the second test and the Australian GP".

Winter testing will resume next week as the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya prepares for the last week of practice, which will take place between March 7th and 10th. Toro Rosso has not announced yet on which days Carlos will be driving, but we will keep you updated via www.carlosainz.es and our Twitter account @carlosainzinfo.