Toro Rosso almost adopted a nose similar to that of Lotus
Toro Rosso presented a car with a nose in the spirit of most of its rivals, but James Key revealed that the Italian team almost arrived with a similar solution - with two tips - to the one presented by Lotus.
On Monday, the Toro Rosso team unveiled the STR9, and while the Italian single-seater adopted a design similar to its rivals, it almost wasn’t the case.
Indeed, James Key – technical director of the Faenza team – told Autosport that the team had considered adopting a twin-tipped nose like the Lotus E22: « We studied something similar, it wasn’t exactly the same [as Lotus] but it had similar features. In theory, it seemed very positive but in practice, there were some drawbacks so ultimately we went with something more cautious. »
Key has nonetheless admitted that Toro Rosso is keeping an eye on this solution just in case: “But it’s going to be a year with many changes, and if Lotus’s choice becomes a trend that develops and clearly brings a benefit, who knows, maybe we’ll revisit it.” The engineer added: “The nose of the Lotus requires clarifications, but it’s a very smart idea. The real question is: ‘Is it in the spirit [of the regulations]?’ We’ll see. It’s up to the FIA and Lotus to discuss, obviously. If they’re using it, it means it passed the crash test, and they are happy with it.”
The British engineer also revealed that the decision on the nose design had to be made early as it affects the rest of the car, and a high nose was initially the best solution based on previous years: « It was quite marginal. The thing with the nose is that you have to decide at some point because it greatly defines the [car’s] philosophy afterward. There were several interesting things seen this week, Ferrari is totally different. For us, it was a logical choice because fundamentally a high nose [is an advantage]. »
