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Toro Rosso suspects dampers caused double Baku GP retirement

The Toro Rosso Formula 1 team believes the same damper problem was the root cause of both Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz Jr's European Grand Prix retirements

Kvyat only lasted six laps of the 51-lap Baku race before having to retire in the pits, while Sainz had to park at the end of the main straight with 20 laps to go.

Team boss Franz Tost said both suffered rear suspension problems.

"We will now have to wait to disassemble the cars to find out what the exact reason is," he said.

"But it seems like the dampers got stuck, impeding the normal movement of the suspension."

Sainz believed he and his team-mate "probably" suffered the same problem.

Though confident Toro Rosso will identify and resolve the issue, he admitted it was ill-timed as Sergio Perez's podium pulled Force India further clear in the constructors' championship.

"We need to find out what was the exact problem, but it's clear that something needs to be changed in that area," Sainz said.

"We will learn from it and become a better team from this and hope it doesn't happen again.

"It's a weekend where we knew we would not score a lot of points, so that it happened in Baku is not a massive problem.

"The problem is that Perez has scored another podium and they are pulling away in the constructors' and this is going to be a tricky situation for us in the championship."

Despite the double retirement, Sainz remained upbeat as he felt Toro Rosso showed well on a track where it expected to struggle given it is running a 2015-spec Ferrari engine.

"We had really good pace for what we had on a track that was not suiting us at all," he said.

"We showed very decent pace all weekend but had a lot of very small problems that in the end accumulated and didn't allow us to score a result.

"It doesn't mean that we can't recover from it for Austria."

LEADING CONSTRUCTORS' STANDINGS

Pos Constructor Points
1 Mercedes 258
2 Ferrari 177
3 Red Bull/Renault 140
4 Williams/Mercedes 90
5 Force India/Mercedes 59
6 Toro Rosso/Ferrari 32

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