Toro Rosso frustrated by inconsistent performance

Toro Rosso had a fairly uneven first part of the season. If the Faenza team was able to achieve real exploits, including a fourth place in Bahrain and a seventh in Monaco won by Pierre Gasly, it has shown itself to be behind in other Grands Prix and is only in eighth position in the Championship.

James Key, technical director of Toro Rosso, admits that his team is frustrated by this inconsistency in terms of results.

“This season has really been up and down. I must say that we are not happy at the moment with our situation, recognizes the engineer in a press release published by Honda. There are many reasons for this. We were able to show that we could have speed, particularly with Pierre in Bahrain and Monaco, but we did not have the consistency we wanted. »

“One reason is the chassis. We are developing developments to improve consistency. The frustration is knowing that you can do it, but it has to come together correctly because it works really well when it does. The thing is, you only need to lose 3 tenths of a lap to start suffering from this inconsistency. It could make the difference between a Top 10 or finding yourself 14th, or even eliminated in Q1. »

James Key recognizes that the arrival of Honda as an engine manufacturer must have forced the team to review its habits, the weight of a partnership with this manufacturer being all the more important as it will power the car. Red Bull Racing from 2019.

“This is the first time the team has had the opportunity to work fully with a manufacturer. It's funny because that's always what we want when we're a customer because we have to be satisfied with what we're given, without having to test on the bench or that kind of thing. But when that happens with the resources that come with it, we wonder how we’re going to deal with that.”, he admits.

“It’s a huge challenge and a very big responsibility. We have a big company that places its trust in our chassis and we have to meet those expectations. I must point out that we have not recruited more people, we are working with the core team and everyone has adapted very well to the challenge. Many said there would be less pressure than the previous team (McLaren), but this is not the case at all. However, we try to make this pressure positive by being transparent with them. It helps us solve problems”, underlines James Key.

Pierre Gasly gained the upper hand over his teammate Brendon Hartley in this first part of the season since he scored 19 points out of the 20 collected so far by Toro Rosso.