Toro Rosso second-year man Carlos Sainz went on record recently saying that the Red Bull RB12 is “an amazing car” and praising it for its cornering speeds.
Even though some, if not most people predicted Toro Rosso to be ahead of Red Bull at the beginning of the year, the standings certainly don’t reflect that with Daniel Ricciardo coming in fourth in each of the first two races.
During an interview with Autosport, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz said that “we’ve been asked many times about fighting Red Bull, and obviously we want to fight them, but we need to keep in mind it is one of the best, if not the best chassis on the grid.”
The young Spaniard added that “the engine this year doesn’t look that bad any more. They are as quick as us on the straights, so definitely Red Bull will be very tough for us in the coming races. We can see Ricciardo’s data on the GPS and everything. We can see it in the medium and low-speed corners. They are really quick – as quick as Mercedes, if not more.”
At the same time, Sainz is aware that there is also a huge budget discrepancy between Toro Rosso and Red Bull, which leaves his team at a disadvantage.
“You also see the budget they have compared to us, it’s on a different planet, in a different league. We shouldn’t look too much at them anymore I don’t think, at least on the kind of circuit as in Bahrain. Hopefully we can keep in touch with Force India and Williams, especially at circuits that will be a bit more in our favour.”
Asking Ricciardo about the RB12 reveals what he thinks about his car’s braking ability and that it is under braking that the Red Bull may have an edge over its competitors.
“Even though we lost a bit on the straights there were still some pretty big braking zones, and that’s where we made up some of the time,” said Ricciardo. “The car has been good on the brakes. Particularly in qualifying [in Bahrain] I had good confidence with it. I saw my sector one was fairly competitive considering a lot of it is straight, so I figure we gain a lot of that back in braking.”
Perhaps Sainz is right not to compare his own team’s performance with that of Red Bull’s, especially since the two outfits are currently separated by 19 points in the Constructors’ standings. However, circuits faster than Bahrain and Melbourne are what’s coming next on the calendar and Toro Rosso’s 2015 Ferrari power unit might help the team narrow the gap to Red Bull.
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