Scuderia Toro Rosso might not have scored any points in the Turkish Grand Prix, but both Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi fought valiantly throughout on their way to finishing twelfth and sixteenth respectively.

Having had a disappointing qualifying, the team went for an unusual strategy, with our two drivers the only ones, apart from Hulkenberg, to start on the harder tyre, having ascertained that the softer one, while naturally being faster, did not seem to suffer significantly more on the degradation front. With Jaime, the strategy nearly delivered a point, because after he had built up a comfortable cushion over Liuzzi’s Force India, the team brought him in for fresh rubber for a second time. From that point on, our Spanish boy was flying and if he hadn’t been delayed by a lapped Hulkenberg and if the race had been a couple of laps longer, he could have caught and passed the two Saubers, lapping much slower than him. In fact, it’s some scant consolation that Jaime set the third fastest lap of the race; quite an achievement when you look at the quality of the rest of the field.

That name Hulkenberg crops up again when we look at Sebastien’s race, as it was the Williams front wing that sliced through the Swiss driver’s right rear, forcing him into a first lap pit stop, after which his race was fatally compromised. Although he kept telling his engineer over the car to pit radio that the car was pulling to one side and that he had bad vibrations, he still pushed as hard as he could and amazingly set some pretty good lap times, even though his floor – a key aero component – and the right rear brake duct were both badly damaged.

Our main aim as we head for the delights of Montreal and the Canadian Grand Prix is to improve our qualifying performance, because fast laps and good race pace count for little if you start too far away from the points places. This weekend was a very valuable experience as we introduced various new parts on the car, evaluating them throughout Friday’s free practice sessions, mainly with positive results.

The race for the lead was something of a classic, although as Red Bull Racing is our sister team, maybe we will gloss over the incident that cost them what looked like another one-two finish. Webber led from pole and although Vettel immediately got the better of front row starter Hamilton, the McLaren man took back his position, before losing it when his pit stop did not go perfectly. He and team-mate Button kept the pressure up on the two Red Bulls and then found themselves handed a one-two after Vettel retired following the collision as he attempted a passing move on Webber. The Australian was able to continue and even had time to make a precautionary stop for a nose and tyre change, on his way to the podium in third spot. It looked for a while as if the McLaren boys were in danger of repeating the mistakes of Red Bull, as the 2009 world champion muscled his way past the 2008 world champion in a simply thrilling duel. However, it didn’t last that long as Hamilton got the upper hand again about half a lap later. The Mercedes duo of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg took fourth and fifth spots and for most of the race, there was a train of closely matched cars all following them around: Kubica was sixth in the Renault, with Massa seventh for Ferrari, followed by team-mate Alonso, who managed to get ahead of Petrov in the final stages. The last two points places were filled by Sutil in the Force India and the Sauber of Kobayashi.Jaime Alguersuari finished the Turkish Grand Prix in 12th position, ahead of his Scuderia Toro Rosso team-mate Sébastien Buemi, who finished 16th.

McLaren celebrated a one-two victory finish with Lewis Hamilton crossing the line ahead of                team-mate Jenson Button.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber leads the Drivers Championship after coming third, with Schumacher,         Rosberg, Kubica, Massa, Alonso, Sutil and Kobayashi completing the top ten.