Scuderia Toro Rosso became the latest team to unveil their 2010 car. The STR5 is the first machine that Toro Rosso had to make itself, following the ban on customer cars in Formula One.
“2010 is a landmark year for Scuderia Toro Rosso as the new regulations demand that we go it alone in terms of designing and building our car in-house,” said team boss Franz Tost.
“After four years of working in collaboration with Red Bull Technology, the STR5 is the first car that is one hundred percent down to our own endeavours.
“Creating the necessary infrastructure to tackle this task has been our biggest challenge, possibly more difficult than actually producing the car itself. We have taken on an additional eighty staff and expanded our facility to accommodate them, including a Machine Shop to increase our production capacity.
“In addition, we have commissioned a wind tunnel in Bicester, England, which we bought from Red Bull. It will take time for the highly skilled team we have assembled to learn to work together as efficiently as possible.
“Making predictions for the coming season is a dangerous trap, but if pushed, I would say we must aim to finish in the top eight in the Constructors’ Championship, while giving our young drivers everything they need to improve, as well as optimising our infrastructure in order to be as competitive as possible in 2010 and beyond.”
Following the trend set by the other 2010 cars, the STR5 features a high nose and a shark fin engine cover. In addition a double diffuser, adapted from the STR4 when this particular aerodynamic device was made legal by the sport’s governing body last year.
The driver line-up remains the same as 2009 with Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari representing the junior Red Bull team.
News articles on the new Toro Rosso STR5. See the links here:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81168
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/02/01/toro-rossos-str5-breaks-cover-pictures/
Sebastien Buemi says he is feeling a lot more confident as he faces the start of his second Formula 1 season with the Toro Rosso team.
The Swiss driver made his grand prix debut last year and scored points in his debut race before enduring a difficult middle part of the season as his team struggled for pace.
Now he knows most of the circuits and the team better, Buemi reckons he will be stronger.
“To be honest, I feel a lot more confident,” Buemi, whose team unveiled its 2010 car today, told AUTOSPORT.
“First of all, I know almost all of the circuits – although Korea and Montreal will be new – and I feel a lot more confident because I know how a weekend goes. That was not the case in the past.
“Being with the same team, the same mechanics, the same engineers and working with the same people again is a really good point. It’s difficult to know what we will be able to achieve because we don’t know the performance of the other guys, but I feel quite confident.”
Last year, Toro Rosso introduced its new car when the season had already began. This year, however, the STR5 is ready to start testing today.
Buemi reckons the early start will help the team.
“This is positive,” he added. “As we could see two years ago when Toro Rosso started the season with the old car…we need to take the points when we can get them and we need to work hard t get competitive.
“The changes on the car are still quite big with the fuel tanks, the small front tyres and no wheel covers…there were a lot of things that we had to change but it’s going to be important to finish the races. You can get quite a lot of points if you can finish the first few races.”
And the Swiss driver admitted he is hopeful Toro Rosso could be one of the surprises of the season.
“I hope so. It’s too early to say but we will keep working as hard as we can and I hope we will be the surprise of the season. But until we know the other new cars it’s too early to say.”
He added: “I feel good, I know we can do it, I know the team can do it and now we just need to arrive with a car that works well and doesn’t have any technical problems and our people in the wind tunnel st art to work well and we can get some new parts on it.
“The other guys will not wait for us, and if we cannot follow them we will not get points. It’s a big deal and if the team works well we can do it.”
Source: Autosport.com
Jaime Alguersuari feels he will be much better prepared this year as he begins working on the 2010 season with Toro Rosso.
The 19-year-old Spaniard became the youngest driver to compete in a grand prix when he replaced Sebastien Bourdais from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards last year.
Alguersuari had to jump into the car without any testing and will only be making his F1 testing debut this week, having already raced in eight grands prix.
The Toro Rosso driver is sure he will be a lot better prepared for the start of this season.
“Well, definitely this year is going to be much longer than last year. At least we have time to prepare for the season,” said Alguersuari during the launch of Toro Rosso’s new car at Valencia.
“We had a long winter because we had big training – in Austria and Spain. We had some time to prepare, and we still have time to get ready for the season.
“So, this does not mean it will be easier than last year, because F1 is always tough, but I do believe that things will become different, we will be more competitive and we will be ready for F1.
“Last year everything was so fast, and I didn’t know the car, didn’t know the circuits and didn’t know anything, so this year should be much better for me.”
The Spanish driver said his team is quite optimistic about the performance of the new car unveiled today.
“I’ve been working for the last weeks on the seat at Faenza,” he said. “I know that the new car looks very nice from the outside. On the inside I also think it is quite good. The basis is quite similar to last year’s car, but obviously it is longer and the tank is bigger. I think we will have a good year really.
“We drivers are better on the performance and technical side, but all of the team have done the best job so far during this winter. I think we are happy for the moment.
“We need to see how we are in the testing. We need to see who is fast and who is not, and what the expectations for us are. Then we will see how it will be during the season. Not is a bit too soon to be saying something.”
Alguersuari, who officially confirmed at Toro Rosso just recently, said he never had any doubts about his place in the team.
“I don’t really know,” he said when asked about the late announcement. “After Abu Dhabi when we finished the championship the situation was clear for me. I had to have a big training during the winter until the first race, so I was a Red Bull driver. My contract was with Red Bull, and everything was fixed.
“But I don’t know, maybe personal things – I don’t know what happened to make it take that long, but I was completely sure that it was going to be like this. There was no possibility for it to be in a different way, to be honest. Otherwise, it was stupid because I was so young and I’ve been in Red Bull since I was 15, so it was not making sense.”
Source: Autosport.com
Toro Rosso’s new STR5, launched in Valencia on Monday (February 1st), marks the first car built 100 percent in-house by the Italian team following four years of collaboration with Red Bull Technology. Founded in 2006 after Red Bull’s purchase of Minardi, Toro Rosso’s cars have until now been based on those of Red Bull Racing. However, regulation changes demand they go it alone from 2010 in terms of design and construction.
“Creating the necessary infrastructure to tackle this task has been our biggest challenge, possibly more difficult than actually producing the car itself,” team principal Franz Tost told Toro Rosso’s official website. “We have taken on an additional 80 staff and expanded our facility to accommodate them, including a machine shop to increase our production capacity.
“In addition, we have commissioned a wind tunnel in Bicester, England, which we bought from Red Bull. It will take time for the highly skilled team we have assembled to learn to work together as efficiently as possible.”
In recent years, Toro Rosso have undertaken an ever-increasing level of production at their Faenza factory, but in March of 2009 they were given the go-ahead to actually become Formula One constructors. Since then they have been building up their resources in preparation for 2010.
“Being recognised as a constructor involves owning the intellectual property rights to what are defined as the listed parts,” explained technical chief Giorgio Ascanelli. “These are effectively the monocoque, the safety structures that are subject to homologation and crash testing, which means the rear and front structures, primary and secondary roll-over structures and the complete aerodynamic package, the suspension, fuel and cooling systems.”
Compared to its predecessor, the STR5’s design has been optimised to make the most of a double diffuser at the rear. The car is also longer due to its larger fuel tank, a consequence of the ban on refuelling for 2010. The additional weight of the fuel means suspension and braking have also undergone a major reappraisal.
By Toro Rosso’s own admission, the STR5’s design is deliberately quite conservative, as the team adapt to their recent rapid expansion and learn to trust the data from their new wind tunnel. Nevertheless, Tost is confident the Ferrari-powered machine should help them improve on their tenth place in the 2009 standings.
“Making predictions for the coming season is a dangerous trap, but if pushed, I would say we must aim to finish in the top eight in the constructors’ championship, while giving our young drivers everything they need to improve, as well as optimising our infrastructure in order to be as competitive as possible in 2010 and beyond,” he said.
Toro Rosso will be testing the STR5 in Spain until Wednesday.
Source: Formula1.com