Monday was an important one in the history of Scuderia Toro Rosso as itsfirst car designed entirely in-house, the STR5, made its track debut on thefirst day of pre-season testing. With Sebastien Buemi at the wheel, the car(chassis number STR5-02) completed 10 laps before being sidelined with agearbox control problem, which took some time to fix, before going back outon track for the final half hour. In total, he completed 18 laps, with a besttime of 1.14.762.

Giorgio Ascanelli: “This morning we had a problem with one of thegearbox actuators, which we managed to improve, but not fix completely. Itis too early to make any comment on the actual performance characteristicsof the new car. In the short term, we will be trying to fix the actuator problemovernight, in the hope of having a better day tomorrow.”

Sebastien Buemi: “It’s good to start testing at last. This morning, we had aproblem, which took a long time to analyse. We managed to get out againtowards the end of the day, even though the fault was not completely fixed.At least we managed some running, which allowed us to work through theusual new car procedures, such as checking seat position, visibility from thecockpit, the systems and so on. But it is a bit too early to get an impressionof what the car is like, especially those elements affected by the rulechanges.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “It felt good to be back at a race track and hear thesound of F1 cars again, and I can’t wait until Wednesday, when I get my firstturn behind the wheel.”

Buemi continues to drive today, while Alguersuari takes over onWednesday.