Both Sébastien Bourdais and
Sebastian Vettel professed themselves disappointed by the pace of
Scuderia Toro Rosso's new STR3 on the opening day of practice in Monaco, as the duo languished well down the timesheets.
After lapping 13th (Bourdais) and 19th-fastest in the morning session, the pairing would slip back to respectively 18th and 20th in the afternoon as the rubber went down, some 2.5 seconds shy of the leading pace around the tortuous, winding streets of the Principality.
Though the new machine was originally scheduled to have been introduced in Turkey a fortnight ago, Bourdais' hefty testing smash first time out in it at Barcelona put the brakes on that, meaning
STR is having to dial it in around what is arguably the most challenging circuit on the
Formula 1 calendar.
“This morning when I woke up, I thought, ‘this is it, I'm finally going to drive Monaco in an
F1 car!'” the Frenchman remarked after the first day's practice. “It was a case of finding out about the new car, which was always going to be difficult on this demanding track. We always ran with a heavy fuel load, so we should not read anything into the lap times. We are not where we want to be, but I don't think we are as far behind as it might look.
“However, I was expecting us to be in slightly better shape than this, which means Saturday and Sunday are going to be interesting. We are lacking a bit of grip, maybe because we lack a little downforce in this maximum downforce set-up – which our top speeds would also suggest. At least my past experience here has been a help, and in the morning I got into a rhythm quite quickly.”
