Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was frustrated with his day’s running as issues with the STR12 arose in the morning session.
Despite the issues that hampered the Russian’s programme, he remains confident in the car’s progress.
Kvyat said: “A bit of a frustrating morning for me today because we lost some valuable track time due to a drivetrain issue.
“It’s a shame for myself and the team because we should be using the time to add laps to our tally.
“But, on a positive note, when the car is running it feels good and there’s always something positive found by the engineers and myself.
“My feeling with the car is also improving lap after lap. We just need to keep our heads down and continue to work as hard as we are already doing.”
With the issues that plagued Kvyat’s day as well as team-mate Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso feels that they have some ground to make up before the first round in Australia in three weeks’ time.
However, the team are confident there is still a lot of potential in the STR12 yet to be unlocked.
Head of vehicle performance Jody Egginton added: “A frustrating day as we were not able to complete our planned run programme.
“We started the morning with Daniil assessing some overnight changes and, subsequently, some further tyre and general set-up related tests.
“These yielded some useful data but, due to an issue with the drivetrain, we had to stop and as such were not able to complete the run plan.
“The issues today, combined with not having had a perfect day 1 and day 2, leaves us with a lot of ground to cover between now and the end of the next test and we will need to adapt the remaining running to achieve our primary objectives before Australia.
“However, we are up for the challenge and feel confident that there is a lot of potential in the STR12; we just have to remain focused in the remaining test we have and we will unlock it.”
