Scuderia Toro Rosso has done very well these past couple of seasons as Red Bull Racing’s satellite team. They take on young talent, grow them and then ship them to Red Bull for a chance at winning the title.
They came a long way from their early Cosworth engine days back in 2006. Since then, they’ve consistently been either a middle of the pack team or a back-to-middle of the pack team. Rarely has Toro Rosso had to share the same fate as teams like HRT, Caterham or Marussia.
They finished a respectable 7th last year, with 30 total constructors points to show for it. A year before that, it was Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo who managed to score 20 points for the season. And Ricciardo wasn’t even in Formula 1 a year before that. And let’s not forget, Sebastian Vettel was a Toro Rosso driver too when he started racing F1.
Now, the team has taken the wraps off their 2015 car, the STR10, before their first pre-season test session in Spain. The STR10 is Renault-powered for the 2015 season as well and it features a duo of rookie drivers in Max Verstappen (17 years old) and Carlos Sainz Jr.
The team’s technical director James Key said that “the car is a real mix of very different approaches in some areas, while also refining and developing what we felt were some of the more solid philosophies of the 2014 car.” He also stated that the car will be “fundamentally different” once they get to Australia for race 1.
As it should. That’s what pre-season is fore – working out the kinks. Whether or not STR is going to be faster than their main rivals this year remains to be seen, especially with such inexperienced drivers.
The car itself – no surprises there. Actually, we think last year’s model looked a bit better.