Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost admitted the Faenza-based squad will be hard-pressed to match its 2008 achievements this season, as the team unveiled its new STR4 car at Barcelona on Monday morning.
STR enjoyed a breakthrough ’08 campaign, scoring a shock first grand prix victory at Monza with young star Sebastian Vettel and beating its senior sibling Red Bull Racing to sixth place in the constructors’ championship.
But with Vettel having moved up to RBR, which now boasts one of the strongest driver line-ups on the grid, and the energy-drinks firm expected to concentrate resources on the senior squad, Tost cautioned that STR may not be able to repeat its giant-killing feats.
“The 2008 season was good in terms of our on-track performance, which, it’s fair to say, exceeded our expectations, with our biggest ever haul of points, a pole position and a win,” he said.
“It's going to be tough to live up to that this year.”
He added that the sweeping regulation changes – although in theory creating a more level playing field – actually make life harder for cash-strapped smaller teams.
“Historically, whenever rules have changed significantly, it is always the bigger, more established teams who have the technical resources and experience to react quickly in adapting to those changes,” he noted.
“It was the long period of stability in the rules which allowed Toro Rosso to be so competitive last year.”
But while conceding that Toro Rosso has a tough act to follow, Tost said the impressive testing performances of Red Bull’s Adrian Newey-designed RB5 chassis, from which the STR4 is derived, bode well for his team – especially since it will have the new chassis from the start of the season.
“This year is already looking great as we are five races ahead of schedule, given that last year we did not get to race the ‘08 car until the sixth round of the season in Monaco!” he said.
“Right from Red Bull Racing’s first test in Jerez it appeared that the car was competitive straight away and that Adrian Newey and his team had come up with a very promising package.
“The car looks good and shows very promising performance.”
STR benefited last year from its Ferrari engines, which gave it a noticeable power advantage over the Renault-powered RBR.
And although Renault has been given dispensation under the engine freeze to close the performance gap over the winter, Tost is delighted to continue with the Italian marque.
“This year marks the third year of our collaboration with Ferrari, which, on both a human and technical level, works very well,” he said.
“It goes without saying that having an engine that won the 2008 constructors’ world championship can only be a good thing.”
And while other teams have had to lay off staff due to cost-cutting measures and the recession, Tost said Toro Rosso had expanded its comparatively small workforce over the past year.
“With the continued support of Red Bull, Scuderia Toro Rosso has grown in several ways in the past 12 months,” he said.
“The team is bigger, having expanded its facility in Faenza and we have taken on more staff.”
He said aerodynamic restrictions did not bear heavily on STR but did help to close the manpower gap between it and the larger teams.
“At Toro Rosso, we support the cost-cutting initiatives instigated by the FIA and FOTA.
“These are a good thing for a small team like ours, as for example, the reduction in the use of wind tunnel time and Computational Fluid Dynamics has had a minimal effect on our work.
“In terms of manpower, it means we have not had to let many people go, allocating test team staff to other roles within the company.”
Asked what the team’s goals for the season were, Tost said: “Even matching our 2008 showing will be difficult, as the sport enters a new era.
“Therefore our target has to be to leave every race track on a Sunday night knowing we have done the best job we could.
“The results will then depend on how everyone else has done.”
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