Tag: toro rosso

Rosberg On Top at Second Barcelona Test

Nico Rosberg stamped Mercedes’ authority on day one of the second test in Barcelona by going quickest on the day.

Rosberg’s fastest time of 1:23.022 just told half the story. Lewis Hamilton took over in the afternoon session and went on to complete a very impressive race simulation. Between the Mercedes drivers they managed to rack up 169 laps.

“It was a great afternoon of running with great mileage,” said Hamilton.

“We did a race simulation and after that I feel I’m ready for race one.

“The car is feeling great and was consistent all day.”

Valtteri Bottas ended his day second fastest with a time of 1:23.229 with 123 laps under his belt.

Finishing third fastest was McLaren’s Fernando Alonso with a time of 1:24.735 ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in 4th with a best time of 1:24.836. Both Raikkonen and Alonso brought out the red flags today with Alonso stopping at the end of the pit lane at the end of the morning session and Raikkonen in the mid afternoon with a gearbox problem.

Daniil Kvyat in the Red Bull finished 5th fastest with Hamilton in the Mercedes 6ht.

In the new liveried Toro Rosso, Max Verstappen ened his day 7th fastest with the highest lap count of the day at 144. Another solid day of running for Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India seen him finish 8th fastest. Tom McCullough, Chief Race Engineer at Force India called it “another routine day.”

The Sauber C35 made its debut today at the hand of Felipe Nasr who completed 103 laps to place 9th fastest ahead of Kevin Magnussen in the Renault R.S.16 in 10th. Magnussen clocked up 119 laps until he came to a stop at Turn 3 just 10mins before the end of the day.

Haas F1 had one of their worst testing days so far with Esteban Gutierrez confined to the garage for most of the day after a problem with the fuel system.

It was not much different for Rio Haryanto in the Manor. The car suffered from an oil leak which kept in the pits for most of the morning session.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:23.022	–	82
2	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:23.229	+0.207	123
3	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:24.735	+1.713	93
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:24.836	+1.814	72
5	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:25.049	+2.027	69
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:25.051	+2.029	90
7	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:25.176	+2.154	144
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:25.336	+2.314	121
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C35	1:25.493	+2.471	103
10	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:25.760	+2.738	119
11	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:26.661	+3.639	23
12	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:27.625	+4.603	45

March 1, 2016

Raikkonen Closes off the First Test On Top

Kimi Raikkonen closed off the final day of the first pre-season test of 2016 on top of the time sheets in the Ferrari SF16-H

The Finn set his fastest time of 1:23.477 on the Ultra Soft compound tyres late in the morning. Second fastest to Raikkonen was Daniil Kvyat in the Red Bull who was almost a second slower with a 1:24.293.

Alfonso Celis had a good day out with some solid running for Force India which put him 3rd fastest setting his time on the super softs.

Renault had a very good day with 153 laps completed with Kevin Magnussen at the wheel of the R.S.16. This sort of reliability from Renault is encouraging for the manufacturer and although they’re still down on power the driveability seems to have improved.

Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen put in another solid day of running for the Faenza based team racking up 110 laps for the day and finishing 5th fastest for the day. Felipe Nasr in the 2015 Sauber C34 was 6th fastest with 121 laps to his name.

Both Mercedes drivers were at the wheel of the W07 today with Rosberg finishing 7th fastest and Hamilton 8th. They both completed 86 and 99 laps respectively which brings the grand total of 185 laps on the day for Mercedes. Such was the reliability of the Mercedes they had to get both their drivers to keep up.

Bewildering for the other F1 teams. The new Mercedes is so fast and reliable they have to throw both super fit wheel-smiths at it every day

— Martin Brundle (@MBrundleF1) February 25, 2016

Although conceding that they would’ve liked to have done more mileage, Esteban Gutierrez had a solid day for newcomers Haas F1 with 89 laps. He’s day was cut short after his car stopped on track an hour before the end of the session.

“We had a productive day. In the morning we had a small problem which we sorted pretty quickly due to the team working well together,” said Guther Steiner the Team Principal of Haas F1.

“In the afternoon after a long run we went into pit-stop practice. We had a problem with our ECU and we stopped testing for the day but it looks promising.

“In general the first test was a fantastic four days for us, we got a lot of running in which we didn’t expect because we are a new team, we are only four days old.”

Fernando Alonso did not set a time. He had completed three installation laps until he was confined to the garage after a coolant leak. The awkward position of the leak meant that it took longer for the team to fix the problem.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:23.477	–	78
2	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:24.923	+0.816	94
3	Alfonso Celis	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:24.840	+1.363	75
4	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:25.263	+1.786	153
5	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:25.393	+1.916	110
6	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:26.053	+2.576	121
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.187	+2.71	86
8	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.295	+2.818	99
9	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:26.483	+3.006	54
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:27.802	+4.325	89
11	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05	1:28.268	+4.789	51
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	No time	–	3

February 25, 2016

F1 2016: Pre-season Test 1 Day 3 – Hulkenberg On Top

The third day of testing at Spain’s circuit de Catalunya was headed by Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg.

The morning running was marked with the introduction to Formula 1 of Indonesia’s first ever grand prix driver Rio Haryanto. The rookie Manor driver seemed comfortable in the early running and put together a solid first few stints. A slight error later on in the morning saw the Manor end up in the gravel trap of turn 5 which prompted the second red flag of the morning.

The first red flag of the day was prompted by the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard was forced to stop at the exit of the pitlane with a loose rear wheel. The morning was a complete write-off for Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen as the team struggled to get on top of a fuel pick-up issue. The Finnish driver was only able to complete three installation laps before lunch.

Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg continued with Mercedes’ run programme by putting together several race simulation runs in the morning. As lunch rolled around it was Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India heading the timing sheet with a 1:25.286. The German would later improve his time to a 1:23.110.

The session after lunch saw the two Mercedes drivers swop around with Lewis Hamilton taking over testing duties for the remainder of the day. Kimi Raikkonen was able to put Ferrari on the board after lunch and the Finn completed xx laps for the day. Felipe Massa was the first driver to reach 100 laps on day three of the first pre-season test in the Williams whilst Carlos Sainz also put more than 100 laps on the board in his Toro Rosso.

Late on in the day’s running Renault driver Kevin Magnussen brought out the red flag as his car stopped on the start/finish strait. It proved a minor blip on the radar as proceedings got underway within minutes. Haryanto was first out on track in the Manor Mercedes on the medium compound tyres. By this stage no driver had opted to strap on the ultrasoft compound.

McLaren called an end to their day’s running thirty minutes before the close of the session. Jenson Button’s car, which completed only 51 laps, suffered an hydraulic leak.Williams too brought an early end to proceedings after discovering an oil leak of Felipe Massa’s car.

Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz ended the day with 161 laps on the board while Hulkenberg in the Force India heads Romain Grosjean, in the Haas, at the top of the leaderboard.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:23.110	–	99
2	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:25.874	+2.764	82
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:25.977	+2.867	78
4	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:26.014	+2.904	111
5	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.084	+2.974	74
6	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:26.239	+3.129	161
7	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:26.392	+3.282	115
8	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.421	+3.311	88
9	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:26.497	+3.387	74
10	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:26.712	+3.602	109
11	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:26.919	+3.809	51
12	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05	1:28.249	+5.139	78

February 24, 2016

F1 2016: Elimination style Qualifying for F1
Formula 1 looks set to introduce an elimination style qualifying session in 2016.

A meeting in Geneva between the Strategy Group and the Formula 1 Commission saw a unanimous vote passed to revamp the qualifying session for the 2016 season. The session will still remain as a one hour session split into three segments. However, with the new format all drivers will have to be on circuit until they are eliminated from qualifying.

Teams have agreed to a general outline for how the qualifying hour will run while the finer details are yet to be decided. The decision to change the qualifying format must be ratified by the World Motorsport Council on March 4. For now, here is a breakdown of how the qualifying hour will progress:

Q 1 –
- Session will last 16 minutes;
- After seven minutes have elapsed the slowest driver is eliminated;
- Thereafter, after every 1 minute 30 seconds, until the end of Q1, the slowest driver is eliminated;
- Seven drivers will be eliminated in Q1 and 15 will advance to Q2.
Q 2 –
- Session will last 15 minutes;
- After six minutes have elapsed the slowest driver is eliminated;
- Thereafter, after every 1 minute 30 seconds, until the end of Q2, the slowest driver is eliminated;
- Seven drivers will be eliminated in Q2 and 8 will advance to Q3.
Q3 –
- Session will last 14 minutes;
- After five minutes have elapsed the slowest driver is eliminated;
- Thereafter, after every 1 minute 30 seconds the slowest driver is eliminated;
- 2 driver will remain in the final 1 minute 30 seconds of the session to determine pole position.
In addition, a penalty system was discussed by the F1 Commission. The penalty system proposes for time to be added to a driver’s qualifying lap time based on his championship position. The good news is that the penalty system didn’t gain much support amongst F1 teams at the meeting.

The introduction of a new qualifying format is rather perplexing. The last qualifying format had very little, if anything, wrong with and easily managed to both deliver drama and build excitement throughout the session. If the aim is to ‘improve the show’ with this radical change then F1 should beware of compounding the complexity of the sport for a new viewer/fan.
February 24, 2016

F1 2016: Pre-season Test 1 Day 2 – Vettel Quickest Again

The second day of testing got underway with the circuit de Catalunya bathed in bright sunshine.

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was the first driver on track and the first to set a flying lap as the second day of testing got underway.The majority of the first two hours of the morning were spent on gathering important data that the teams will carry through to the first few races of the 2016 season. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel emerged from the garage around mid-day to set the fastest lap of the morning – a 1:24:940.

By this stage Vettel was the only driver to break the 1:24 barrier. Soon after Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo dipped in the 1:24 to go second fastest overall. Fernando Alonso and Lotus’ Jolyon Palmer gave the yellow-walled soft tyre a trundle but did not set a representative time on the softer tyre. The first red flag of the session was brought out by Max Verstappen as his Toro Rosso grinded to a halt in the final sector of the circuit. As the Toro Rosso was recovered to the pits testing was underway again. Nico Rosberg immediately shot to the top of the timing sheets with a 1:24:867.

A switch onto the quicker, red-walled, supersoft tyre took Ricciardo quickest before the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel emerged to set a 1:23.658 on the same tyre. Just before the lunch break Daniel Ricciardo fitted the new-for-2016 ultra-soft tyre. He quickly took over at the top of the timing sheet only to be outdone by Vettel’s own run on the purple-walled tyres. The Ferrari driver set a time of 1:22.810.

The session after lunch was interrupted by the stoppage of Jolyon Palmer’s Renault which had to be recovered to the pits on the back on a flatbed truck. Reports later surfaced that the Renault’s issue may have been turbo related. It brought an early end to Renault’s running with Palmer only able to complete 42 laps for the day.

By mid afternoon Nico Rosberg had again underlined the reliability of the new Mercedes by reaching the 100 lap mark without any issues. Most of the teams settled into longer stints in the afternoon. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas bucked the trend and opted to run a stint of laps on the orange-walled hard tyres. Similarly, Vettel opted instead for the ultrasoft tyres for run. The Ferrari driver completed only a handful of laps before the drop off in performance forced him back into the pits.

McLaren can breath a sign of relieve as Fernando Alonso racked 100 laps two hours before the of the day’s running. In stark contrast to McLaren’s fortunes twelve months ago both Alonso and Jenson Button have already reported a much more positive feeling with the 2016 car. Several other drivers including Max Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Marcus Ericsson, Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel all completed more than 100 laps. But it was Nico Rosberg and his Mercedes that set the most laps of the day with a mammoth 172 laps.

By the end of the day’s running Sebastian Vettel’s 1:22:810 remained quickest overall.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF16-H	1:22.810	–	126
2	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:23.525	+0.715	112
3	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:23.650	+0.840	101
4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:24.867	+2.882	172
5	Marcus Ericcson	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:25.237	+2.427	108
6	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:25.524	+2.714	79
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:25.648	+2.838	134
8	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05	1:25.925	+3.115	71
9	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:26.082	+3.272	119
10	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:26.189	+3.379	42
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:26.539	+3.729	121

February 23, 2016

F1 2016 Pre-Season Test 1 Day 1: Vettel Tops the Timesheets

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished the first day of the first pre-season test of 2016 on top of the time sheets ahead of defending champion Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W07 Hybrid.

The German set his best time of 1:24.939 on the medium compound tyres just before lunch to take the top spot for the day. For the rest of the day it was testing as usual for Ferrari which seen Vettel rack up 69 laps.

A few doors up the paddock, Lewis Hamilton racked up an astonishing 156 laps on the day. That’s 698km, which is just a little over two race lengths. “It’s good to be back. It really had felt like a while – but now it feels like home already,” said Hamilton. He finished second fastest on the day with a 1:25.409.

Daniel Ricciardo finished third fastest clocking up 87 laps on the day after a bit of a slow start. This, in contrast to the previous season’s testing, seems like a big improvement from the team. “First impressions are positive but it’s still too early to say much more. We had a good day and I’m ready for more,” said Ricciardo at the end of the day’s running.

Valtteri Bottas ended his day 4th fastest for Williams completing 80 laps. Bottas’ first impression of the car was that he feels many of the issues they’ve had last year have been fixed but he thinks its too early to say where they are in relation to the other teams.

“Valtteri has been complimentary about aspects of the FW38 which is good start,” said the Chief and Test Support Engineer Rob Nelson.

“We are just building up our run lengths and doing our due diligence on reliability, and as the test goes on we’ll feed in more and more performance items. Overall it is a reasonable start to pre-season testing for us.

Mexican Alfonso Celis was in the VJM09 for Force India. He finished 5th fastest with 58 laps to his name. Not far off his pace was Jenson Button in the McLaren MP4-31 finishing 6th fastest with 84 laps on the board. Button’s best time of 1:26.735 came courtesy of a late run on the soft compound tyres.

Carlos Sainz was out for Toro Rosso today. The team chose not to have a big reveal in the pits and instead just emerged from the pits when the green flag dropped for the start of the day. Sainz finished 7th fastest with 55 laps under his belt. His session was cut short when the team saw something strange in the gearbox oil system. The team decided to stop their session as a precaution.

Sauber, who ran an updated livery but a 2015 car, had Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of the C34. He placed 8th fastest on the day ahead of Manor driver Pascal Wehrlein. Wehrlein, on his first outing for the new look Manor team, clocked up 54 laps.

New comers Haas F1 had a good start to their debut test until a front wing failure brought out the red flags. The team say that they have a fix for the wing and will have a replacement by Tuesday. The wing failure put Grosjean out for most of the day. He did, however, emerge from the pits with an hour left in the session to complete a few laps.

Jolyon Palmer was 11th fastest for Renaul in the R.S.16. He had limited running owing to software issued on the car.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF16-H	1:24.939	–	69
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:25.409	+0.470	156
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:26.044	+1.105	87
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:26.091	+1.152	80
5	Alfonso Celis	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:26.298	+1.359	58
6	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:26.735	+1.796	84
7	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:27.180	+2.241	55
8	Marcus Ericcson	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:27.555	+2.616	88
9	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:28.292	+3.353	54
10	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:28.399	+3.460	31
11	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:29.356	+4.417	37

Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1, Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula 1

February 22, 2016

F1 2016: Ferrari Passes Crash Test

The 2016 Ferrari car is well on course to make its debut in February after passing a mandatory FIA crash test.

The safety regulations of the FIA dictate that all critical areas of a Formula 1 car pass a standardised crash test before it is allowed to be officially entered into any official FIA race.

The latest team to pass the crash test is Ferrari who received the official stamp of approval after undergoing several tests. Reports are that the Italian team needed several attempts at passing the test because sampled more than one nose for their 2016 challenger. The Ferrari team’s 2016 car is already reported to be quite different from it’s 2015 predecessor and is rumoured to be introducing a short nose concept for the new season. The new nose isn’t so much a reproduction from what we’ve seen on other cars in 2015 but more a mixture between the nosecone sported by Mercedes and Toro Rosso.

The 2016 Ferrari, still unnamed, is expected to be launched towards the end of February as testing for the 2016 season gets underway in Spain.

January 25, 2016
WATCH: Max Verstappen vs. skieer Aksel Lund Svindal on top of Hahnenkamm mountain, Kitzbühel

Max Verstappen sure made moves that matter during the 2015 Formula One season proving that he is a fearless racer and not afraid to throw his car around any circuit! On the 14th of Jan, Verstappen took on champion skieer Aksel Lund Svindal on top of Hahnenkaam mounting in Kitzbühel. A thrilling watch and one that most definitely shows that young Verstappen has balls of steel! Enjoy!

January 20, 2016
F1 2015: Year In Review

As the year draws to its conclusion it and the 2015 Formula 1 season will soon be consigned to the history books. As ever the season’s intriguing battles were never solely consigned to the race track.

The engine debate

Engines have been the subject of heated debate for the entire season. From the cost of manufacturing to performance levels to how it affects the sustainability of the sport; all of it has been questioned and picked apart throughout 2015.

After months of wrangling Renault and Red Bull have reached an agreement on power unit supply. The public quarrel between the two ended in what we thought was a messy divorce. However, when neither Ferrari nor Mercedes and not even Honda wanted to supply a potential rival the team had to slink back to Renault. After smoothing over some sizeable differences the Red Bull team will run the French engine but it will branded as TAG Heuer.

Red Bull won’t have Renault’s undivided attention though as the French manufacturer has purchased the Lotus F1 Team. It’s a saving grace for Lotus who has been in financial strife for a number of years. The most public example of this was the failure of the team to pay then driver Kimi Raikkonen’s salary. Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado will be partnered by English rookie Jolyon Palmer in 2016.

At McLaren the debacle that was Honda’s season will soon want to be forgotten. In the end Fernando Alonso used twelve engines in the back of his McLaren – that’s three times more than he was allotted. Issue of after issue dogged both drivers throughout the season as Honda, and McLaren fell miserably short of its expectations. The up-side is that 2016 can hardly be any worse than Honda’s first year back in the top echelon of racing.

Mighty Mercedes and a Ferrari revival

Early on in the season it was clear that Mercedes had maintained its pace advantage. For anyone it would be too difficult to consistently beat the mighty Silver Arrows. The highly billed duel between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton never reached the heights or intensity of 2014. This time around Hamilton summarily outperformed Rosberg to the point where when the German driver finally pitched up the championship was already won by his British teammate.

In Texas Lewis Hamilton was crowned a three time world champion and luck had very little to do with it. Three years ago he made a move to Mercedes that was met with a great deal of apprehension. From a team with championship pedigree in McLaren he went to Mercedes who were seemingly condemn to the mid-field. It didn’t suddenly turn around in 2014 either. Rather it was the culmination of years of work put in by those behind the scenes of this team. It is never about one year in isolation and so to winning world titles for any driver is a culmination of years of work and dedication.

A complete reshuffle of personnel at Ferrari resulted in a stunning turn-around for the Italian team. Three dazzling victories and slew of podiums resulted as they continue to push towards the front of the grid. The arrival of Sebastian Vettel and the relationship between himself and teammate Kimi Raikkonen brought a harmony to the team. In 2015 Ferrari admitted that this driver-pairing and their ability to work together has been a relief for the team; something that was sorely lacking in 2014.

Rookie sensation

Drivers that enter F1 for the first time hardly make as big a splash as Max Verstappen has. Not even Lewis Hamilton’s first year, back in 2007, was met with such unilateral hype. The teenaged Dutch driver, Verstappen, burst onto the scene with audacious overtaking manoeuvres and a clear-as-day hunger to go racing no matter what he has to driver. Even the staunchest of critics have to submit that Verstappen has huge potential. While one season does not make a driver it is indisputable that if Verstappen can keep it all together we are all in for a quite a ride.

There was much more than mentioned here which made up the 2015 season. And in less than 100 days it resumes with dynamism that no other sport in the world can match.

December 15, 2015
Toro Rosso Back To Ferrari Power for 2016

After the announcement that Renault will return to F1 and Red Bull have partnered with TAG Heuer with their power unit, Toro Rosso have confirmed that they will run with Ferrari Power Units in 2016.

The move has been in the works for some months now and after the FIA approved a rule change to allow Ferrari to supply a previous year specification engine to a team, it was all but confirmed that the team would be Toro Rosso.

Toro Rosso will use Ferrari’s 2015 power units which proved to be an enormous step forward from their 2014 unit. The 2015 Power Unit took Ferrari to 2nd in the Constructors Championship and 3rd and 4th in the drivers championship which Toro Rosso say is “a positive situation in which to start Scuderia Toro Rosso’s eleventh year in Formula 1.”

“It’s great to be working with Ferrari again. We had a fruitful relationship in the past and I’m sure it won’t take long for us all to be working together very well again,” said the Team Boss of Toro Rosso, Franz Tost.

“It’s true that time will be very tight for us to be ready for the first test, but we have the right team of people for this and I’m confident that together we will achieve a competitive package for next year – bring on 2016!”.

Toro Rosso have also confirmed that they will retain their current driver line up of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen for 2016.

“We can also count on Carlos and Max who, after being confirmed for the 2016 season, will be able to translate all this year’s learnings and experience into additional valuable feedback throughout the season.”

Photo credit: Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula 1

December 4, 2015