Scuderia Toro Rosso became the last of the 10 F1 teams to show its 2017 car when it unveiled the STR12 and its spectacular new livery in the Barcelona pit lane Sunday evening.
The new car sees the team realigned with sister outfit Red Bull with a return to Renault power, after the Italian outfit used Ferrari engines as a stop-gap last year.
The STR design team is been led by British technical director James Key, and his deputy Ben Waterhouse.
“Everyone in the team has worked extremely hard to ensure we have a very competitive season,” said team boss Franz Tost. “Our chassis is mated to what is possibly the most competitive engine we have had so far in the hybrid era, as we return to Renault power once more.
“Daniil Kvyat will be in his fourth year as an F1 driver and Carlos Sainz will now tackle his third season with us. They are a very talented pairing and they have worked very hard over the winter to be ready for the additional physical challenges involved in driving these new and faster cars.
“The crew that will look after the cars at the track is also very well prepared and generally, throughout the company we have the stability and strength in depth to tackle this season, when the pace of car development will be much faster than over the past couple of years. Finally, we really like the first major livery change of our twelve years on the F1 grid and this new look is reflected in our pit garage, which has also been updated to make life easier while working around these much larger cars.”
Technical boss Key added: “With driver continuity and a power unit which made a major step forward last year and which should be developing strongly this year, it just leaves the chassis as an unknown quantity.
“We always set ourselves ambitious targets and this year, we are taking a more long-term view over the 20 races, with a long list of planned in-season developments. I suspect it will be a very busy year with plenty of performance still to be found.”
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