Optimism for the new 100% Toro Rosso car

The boss of the Toro Rosso team, Franz Tost, is optimistic that building his own car in 2010 does not mean his team will lose ground to the competition. However, he admitted that there could be a difficult transition period.

The small Scuderia has so far used designs provided by Red Bull technologies, but this arrangement has been disapproved by several other teams who felt it was against the spirit of the regulations. This could be described as a customer car. This year, 2009, was supposed to be the year for the ramp-up of Toro Rosso’s design facilities so that next season the team would become a full-fledged constructor.

« We have to design the car on our own, we have to build this car as well as possible, and the infrastructures still need to be improved. It will take time, » explained Tost. « We just have to wait and see. I can only hope that the designers’ experience is substantial enough and that they will do a good job. »

« The best teams have sometimes brought out a car that was nothing fantastic. I hope we will be a small team that can do a good job and bring a car to the track that will allow us to achieve good positions. »

He emphasized that Toro Rosso had always maintained a certain design capacity, so as not to start from scratch: « Fortunately, we have always kept designers, and therefore we do not need to start from scratch, » continued Tost.

« We have to see how it will go during the winter. So far, as far as I can see, they are doing a good job. But we’ll see when the car is on track and we record the lap times. The regulations require us to design a completely new car, because as you know, there will be no more refueling during races next year. »

« This means that the fuel tank is much larger, and the whole car design philosophy needs to be changed. You have a new wheelbase, you have a new weight distribution, it affects us and forces us to design the car differently. »