Toro Rosso troll Alonso after Suzuka success

Toro Rosso trolled Fernando Alonso after Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly secured a superb sixth-seventh finish in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. After delivering Saturday success in Honda's home race, Toro Rosso aped one of Alonso's previous criticisms of the Japanese marque.

After Hartley and Gasly both made it into Q3 at Suzuka, Toro Rosso tweeted "now we can fight in Q3!" – referencing a similar message Alonso delivered after finishing fifth in Australia this year – matching his best result since returning to McLaren.

Alonso predicted at the time that the result would be McLaren's worst of 2018, but it remains their best and the Spaniard and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne qualified below all cars in Japan, save for Marcus Ericsson, who crashed in Q1.

N I C E ????

Now we can fight in Q3! #JapaneseGP #f1jp ???????? pic.twitter.com/jq9rWiKugV — Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) October 6, 2018

Honda have brought an upgraded power unit to Suzuka that appears to have given Gasly and Hartley an extra boost, but the Kiwi revealed that his best qualifying result in F1 was inspired by a bit of chicanery from his team.

"All the sessions were tricky because the kerbs are always wet, so it was tricky out there, you had to be very precise," Hartley said.

"Q3, my engineer told me on the radio that Force India had improved their time, 'so the track is definitely okay'.

"I've now looked at the timing screens and realised that he lied to me.

"So he gave me good confidence that the first sector was going to be dry and good grip, which was a good thing. I had to have full trust in him.

"The team did a fantastic job to put us on track at the right time, and no mistakes from anyone today, so, mega."

MORE: Verstappen pokes fun at Vettel's title hopes
MORE: Ricciardo 'pissed' at Red Bull's latest failure