The new Toro Rosso duo was pleased with performances as the 2012 season was launched in Australia on Friday afternoon. Replacing Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Éric Vergne completed more laps than anybody in the second session.
In a session of mixed conditions, Vergne led the way from 20th place with his team-mate just one position behind, although Friday’s lap times were not truly representative.
“My first Friday as a Formula 1 driver was a good feeling,” Frenchman Vergne began. “Being the first driver out on-track this morning was something special, but after that it was time to get on with all the usual work with the engineers and you forget about that side of it. This morning we did not manage to complete our programme, partly because of the rain. That made life difficult but it was really good fun, as I’ve never driven on rain tyres, which meant I did almost everything you could do today.”
Ricciardo also remains typically upbeat.
“All the hype this week has made it feel as though this is my first F1 race again, but it’s not and I’ve just got to get on with things,” he said, having raced for HRT from last year’s British Grand Prix. “It was a great feeling being back out on-track here in Australia and I really enjoyed it. This morning went pretty well, very good even, while the afternoon was a bit mixed because of the weather.
“All the same, we managed to try most of the tyre compounds apart from the Option (yellow-marked Soft). The changing track conditions made it a bit ‘cat and mouse’; you’d go out on one tyre, then come in and wait for it to dry a bit and you had to be patient.”
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:29.183 | 16 |
| 2. | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | 01:29.292 | 19 |
| 3. | S. Perez | Sauber | 01:30.199 | 23 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:30.341 | 13 |
| 5. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | 01:30.709 | 14 |
| 6. | P. di Resta | Force India | 01:31.466 | 13 |
| 7. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:31.505 | 14 |
| 8. | H. Kovalainen | Caterham | 01:31.932 | 16 |
| 9. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:32.184 | 17 |
| 10. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:32.194 | 19 |
| Full results | ||||
| Daniel Ricciardo | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Daniel Ricciardo photos | |||
| Jean-Eric Vergne | |||
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| More Jean-Eric Vergne photos | |||
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