Και η Toro Rosso παρουσίασε το νέο της μονοθέσιο. Η STR6 είναι το δεύτερο μονοθέσιο της Toro Rosso, το οποίο έχει σχεδιαστεί αποκλειστικά από την Ιταλική ομάδα της Faenza χωρίς την βοήθεια της μεγάλης αδερφής Red Bull Racing. Οδηγοί της είναι οι Sebastien Buemi και Jaime Alguersuari και διαθέτει και αυτή ανασηκωμένο ρύγχος. Πρώτος θα την οδηγήσει ο Jaime Alguersuari, ενώ αύριο μοιραστεί το cockpit με τον Sebastien Buemi, ο οποίος θα οδηγήσει και την Πέμπτη.
Update: Προστέθηκαν περισσότερες φωτογραφίες.
[Πηγή: Scuderia Toro Rosso]
[learn_more caption=”Δελτίο Τύπου”]
Scuderia Toro Rosso launches in Valencia
This will be the sixth year that Scuderia Toro Rosso competes in the Formula 1 World Championship, since the team was created with a view to finding two extra cockpits for the stars of the future coming through the ranks of the Red Bull Junior Driver Programme. Six years down the road, that is very much the team’s raison d’etre, with Sebastien Buemi still among the youngest men on the grid, while his team-mate, Jaime Alguersuari only turns 21 a few days before the second Grand Prix of this season. Still on the school front, the team will be squeezing a third driver into the cockpit at most of the races, as Red Bull junior, Daniel Ricciardo will be taking on the role of “Friday driver,” standing in for one of our drivers in turn for Free Practice 1. Why are we so keen on this teaching role? Maybe the words Sebastian Vettel, World Champion are explanation enough.
On the commercial front, we can look forward to a second year of support from Money Service Group, while on the technical front, 2011 is the second year that Scuderia Toro Rosso will have designed its car totally in-house, in Faenza and in our Bicester (UK) wind tunnel facility. This year’s design is possibly less conservative than in 2010 and naturally takes into account the requirements set out in the technical regulation changes, such as the banning of double diffusers, blown rear wings and adjustable front wings, to be replaced with the arrival of adjustable rear wings and the return, after a one year break, of KERS. Toro Rosso did not use the Kinetic Energy Recovery System in 2009 and this year we hope to enjoy the advantage of using the one evolved by our engine supplier Ferrari, who made good use of the power boosting system two years ago. It will of course be linked to the very same specification 056 V8 engine as used by the other F1 entrant that calls itself a “Scuderia,” albeit with a prancing horse in its livery, rather than a toro. So there are plenty of unknown factors going into 2011, including a new tyre supplier, Pirelli. So that’s an Italian tyre supplier, a car designed and built in Italy, under the supervision of an Italian technical director, running an Italian engine with three drivers who can speak Italian. “Non può che essere un buon segno, che ne dici,” as they say in Faenza.
We have Father Christmas to thank for bringing us Sebastien. It was Christmas 1993 when his father couldn’t think what to buy his lad as a present and got him a go-kart. This was something of a no-brainer as Sebastien’s grandfather once took part in the Le Mans 24 Hours and other events. As the karting grew in importance, it became very much a family event, with a whole tribe of people traipsing around Europe to support the youngster and his cousin Natacha, who also had the racing bug. Sebastien whizzed through the various karting classes, taking Swiss and European title, before moving up to single-seaters in 2004. In Formula BMW, he was soon spotted by Red Bull, who put him on the books, helping him to take the title before going on to be runner up in Formula 3 and the Asian GP2 series. In 2008, he won twice in GP2, including an amazing victory in tricky conditions from 21st on the grid at Magny-Cours. Before Buemi arrived on the scene in 2009, only six Swiss drivers had ever scored Grand Prix points, and Sebastien immediately added his name to that list, joining an elite group of drivers who scored points on their F1 debut. Just getting to Formula 1 is something of an achievement as motor racing is banned in Switzerland, presumably because the noise of the engines might drown out the sound of the cow bells or the cuckoo clocks.
This is your third full season in Formula 1. Does that make it particularly significant for you?
I have big expectations to be honest, as I have quite a lot of experience now: I know all the circuits, I know how Formula 1 works and we also have quite a lot of experience in terms of building up the car. So, if all goes well and hopefully it will, we should be able to score many points and finish in the top eight of the Constructors’ championship.
What’s the next step? What do you need to have a successful season?
I think it’s a combination of many things. The first thing is that I have to give the maximum, getting the most out of myself and I need to have a good car, which is obvious as it is actually the same for all the drivers. The team is doing a good job to get everything working better than before and hopefully produce a quicker car. We switched the focus to the 2011 car pretty early in the season last year, so I have big hopes for the start of the season and how things will work out.
You’re going to be very busy in the cockpit this year, with the adjustable rear wing and the KERS. What’s that going to be like?
This season with all the rule changes, it could be a bit difficult, especially in the early stages at the first few races. It is not yet really clear how we will use the rear wing and the KERS as we are still awaiting a rule clarification. It will take a bit of time to get used to it, but that will be the job of the drivers to be on top of it to the maximum by the start of the season. We will be trying to get up to speed during the winter tests to see what we can do and how we can improve it.
How do you prepare for 20 races?
In terms of preparation it will be the same as ever. You always try to get the maximum out of yourself and out of the training. There are not many changes you can make to your programme, but it will be important to work out when to stay out in between races and when to come back home. For example with the back to back races, it will be important to make the right choice: will it be better to stay out to avoid the jet lag for example? Your training is always the same though, as you push hard in the winter to bring your level up and then you try to keep that level all season long. That means you need a good compromise between time when you relax and recover and when you train again hard.
How important is stability within the team?
Stability is a big point. When you get to a race weekend and you need to concentrate to get the maximum out of the whole crew, it is important to have stability, especially with my race engineer for example: I know him really well he knows me, so we can understand each other without talking. This is an important point because when you have to spend time working together in between the sessions you need to get to the point quickly and knowing one another really well can be an advantage.
Will it be a help that Jaime will be more experienced?
I think it’s really important to have a team-mate that has experience because from a team point of view that makes a difference. We are only allowed to run one car per day during winter testing and if you can use all the days to get the car to go quicker and understand it better, then it makes a difference when you come to the first race. Me and Jaime do not have so much experience, but this is our third season and I’m pretty sure we can extract the most out of the car.
What about Pirelli tyres?
We had two test days in Abu Dhabi at the end of the last championship and it will be important to understand them quickly, because this might make a big difference when you get to the first race. We will learn how they work in cold conditions with all the testing in Europe, but as soon as we get to Bahrain the four days of testing will be very important in terms of understanding their behaviour in our qualifying and race simulations.
You’re still the only Swiss on the grid – important to you?
To be the only Swiss driver is something I am proud of, especially as it is not easy being a Swiss in Formula 1 as we do not have any circuits in Switzerland and we cannot go racing at home, which makes it a bit more difficult to get to Formula 1. But I don’t concentrate much on that: obviously we have a lot of support from the national media and I would say the Swiss people also love Formula 1.
What’s the best thing about F1?
The best thing about Formula 1 is to drive the car, just to get in the car and go racing against all the other drivers. You race against the best drivers in the world, you race with the fastest cars in the world on the best and most beautiful circuits in the world, which makes everything fantastic. When you can feel the adrenalin at the start as you go and fight against the other guys and when you feel the speed at Monza for example, doing 350 kph at the end of the straight, or going round high speed corners or tackling Monaco, it’s all just amazing.
The best thing about Scuderia Toro Rosso?
I think Scuderia Toro Rosso is a fantastic team. It is really good for young people because the team knows how to teach new drivers to get up to speed in Formula 1. It has huge potential and a bright future.
Jaime Alguersuari was the youngest ever driver to start a Formula 1 Grand Prix at the tender age of 19 and he only turns 21 a few days before this year’s Australian GP. The Spaniard comes from Barcelona and so proud is he of his Catalan heritage that he has the Spanish and Catalan flags on his race suit. He made his debut at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, where many journalists speculated he could be “the most dangerous driver in F1,” because, until he sat in the cockpit of his car for the first practice session on the Friday morning, he had never driven a competitive lap in a Formula 1 car. However, he kept out of trouble and from then on, his performance improved through the rest of the year. In 2010, he still faced a steep learning curve, as all the race tracks in the first half of the calendar were new to him, but this season he should be far prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.
What does the 2011 season mean to you?
I think it is definitely a key season for me this year. Every season is important and definitely this one is going to be very significant for myself, because it is my second full year in Formula 1 and because it is the second year that Toro Rosso builds its own car, so it will be completely decisive for our future, for the future of Toro Rosso and for my future, because we obviously need to target our competitors which are Williams, Force India and Sauber. We need to fight against them and finish the championship ahead of them.
With KERS and the adjustable rear wing, you are going to be very busy in the cockpit. How will you deal with all this new technology?
I think 2011 rules are not tested yet so we will see how they work. It looks quite difficult to adapt to the KERS and the adjustable rear wing. We need to test it and see how it goes. I think the KERS is not so difficult, because before the race weekend you can already study and understand the places where you can use it and how to use it during the race. However, the rear wing I’m not sure about. It’s a question mark for everyone, for all the drivers. In 2010 we had the front wing, where we could feel quite a difference definitely on the car balance in the race and when you changed tyre compound and when you had big tyre degradation it was a big help. We will see how it goes with the rear wing because it’s a completely new thing for everyone.
You had one day driving on Pirelli tyres in Abu Dhabi. What do you expect the change in tyre supplier will bring?
That’s another big question mark for everybody – the tyres. I think Pirelli tyres will work quite well, because we had a good experience in Abu Dhabi, the first test so far. We were quite happy with the performance of the tyres. Bridgestone was a big reference for everyone, because they had a so much experience in Formula 1. I don’t really know how fast or slow we will be on the Pirellis compared to them, but, so far, the performance seems quite similar so we can expect more or less the same lap times in every place.
Do you expect all these changes will make overtaking easier, which is what they are supposed to do?
I think in Formula 1 you always look for overtaking performance and definitely last year, it was not easy to overtake. That has always been the case in Formula 1: it is always difficult to overtake another car because as you know you brake very near to the actual corner. Even if one car has a speed advantage, it is never that easy, so I think in general we always look for overtaking performance. This year, it can be different with the KERS system and definitely with less downforce on the car, we should expect to have to brake a bit earlier and with the moveable rear wing all these kind of things will make overtaking easier.
We face the longest season in F1 history. How can you prepare for that physically and mentally?
I think in general what you need from the physical side is to be fit going into the start of the racing, because twenty Grands Prix is a long season with one more race in India so you are looking to have a good physical condition and stay cool between all the travel and the adventures we live around the world. It will not be easy and I expect it to be tough for all us drivers to maintain a rhythm on our travels, with so many places to go and with the jet lag and so on. But with the level of fitness among Formula 1 drivers it will not be a big deal.
Stability – you have the same engineers, mechanics and team-mate. A useful factor?
Yes, of course, I think to stay with the same team, definitely the same engineers and with the same people and mechanics in the background in Faenza, knowing the whole team for one and a half years is quite important and definitely will help me a lot this season. I am really looking forward to the start of the year because they know what they can expect from my side and I know more or less what I can expect from my engineer and the people that work for me. So I expect a lot for this season from the car and on the development side.
A native of Perth, Red Bull Junior driver Daniel made a name for himself when his racing career brought him to Europe. After a year learning the ropes in Formula Renault Italy, he made his big breakthrough in 2008, winning the Formula Renault West European Cup. From 15 races, Daniel took nine pole positions and eight victories on his way to the title.
For 2009 Daniel moved up a class to race in the British Formula 3 Championship and quickly proved that his Formula Renault form wasn’t a flash in the pan. In a spectacular season, the young gun notched seven wins, six pole positions and 13 podium finishes in total, as well as the small detail of wrapping up the title with two rounds to go.
His consistent pace and intelligent feedback in those tests earned him the ‘super-sub’ role as test and reserve driver for the Red Bull teams in 2010, when he also tackled the World Series by Renault, finishing the championship in the runner-up slot. For 2011, he is again reserve driver for the two Red Bull teams with the additional responsibility of driving the Toro Rosso car in Friday’s Free Practice 1 session at most Grands Prix, replacing the two race drivers alternately. And he’ll be dealing with the unfinished business of trying to win the World Series title.
You’re having another crack at the World Series championship this year. What are your expectations in that area?
I feel it’s unfinished business, as I came second in the series last year, missing out very narrowly on the title. To get another crack at it is a good thing and it will be another new experience as I will be with a new team, ISR. They proved to be quick last year so I am confident we can do what we didn’t do in 2010 and go one better.
It’s a busy year for you, as you will be driving one of the Toro Rosso cars on Friday mornings at most of the F1 Grands Prix. Are you excited at the prospect?
I think it will hit me in Bahrain, when I’m rolling out of pit lane for the very first time! I’ll be on the same track with guys I’ve been watching for ten years or so and it will be good fun. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it and from then on, as I drive the session I’m sure it will feel as normal as it can. Hopefully I will seize the opportunity with both hands and see where it goes from there. I expect to be working with the team for the rest of the weekend too. It will be to my benefit, to learn as much as I can from the other drivers.
Daniel’s career highlights:
As a young lad, Franz Tost’s big hero was Jochen Rindt: his bedroom walls were covered with posters of the Austrian ace and when it was dissertation time at school, Franz’s classmates would all groan, as they knew what was coming – another bloody eulogy to Rindt. Inevitably, Tost found himself behind the wheel, racing a Formula Ford. He was quick enough to win the 1983 Austrian FF Championship, but he felt he would not make it to the top as a driver so a degree in Sports Management from Innsbruck University was next on the agenda. This led to a job at the highly-rated Walter Lechner Racing School at the Zeltweg circuit. From there Tost moved to a team management role with EUFRA Racing and at the end of 1993, he took the post of team manager with Willi Weber’s Formula 3 team. It was here that he crossed paths with Ralf Schumacher and Weber asked Tost to accompany the youngster to Japan. This led to looking after Ralf’s interests at Jordan and then Williams, prior to taking on the role of Operations Manager with BMW’s Formula 1 programme. From there, he took on the role of Team Principal with the newly formed Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2005.
Is this a crucial year for the team?
It’s the sixth season of Toro Rosso in Formula 1 and the past five years have shown a good history for the team, as we had to build everything up almost from zero. We are quite confident that we have a good future and can have a good year in 2011. We are still building up our infrastructure. In a Formula 1 team, there is always movement, so you have to keep an eye on every department trying to improve performance. We brought in new people for example in the aerodynamic department in Bicester, where we are currently running two shifts in our wind tunnel. Here in Faenza, especially on the production side we have increased the number of employees which makes me quite confident that in 2011 we will have a successful season.
A lot of rule changes, some of them aimed at improving overtaking. What sort of season do you expect in general terms for the sport?
The major rule changes aimed at overtaking are, the adjustable rear wing and KERS, the kinetic energy recovery system. Concerning the rear wing adjustment, the rules state that if a driver is within one second of the car in front, he is allowed to adjust the rear wing, which means that, at the end of a long straight, he will be 10 to 15 kilometres per hour faster than his competitor, which should enable him to overtake. Whether during the races it will go like this, we don’t know yet. Regarding the KERS system, for sure it will improve performance during qualifying, by three to four tenths of a second and it will also improve the performance during the start procedure, as well as being a help to the driver when accelerating out of slow speed corners. I think that with these two systems, we will see more overtaking manoeuvres, although I must say that, already in 2010 we saw some very good overtaking moves and a very exciting season. I am looking forward to 2011 and we will see if these changes will increase the number of overtaking manoeuvres or not.
The longest season ever. How is the team planning to tackle it?
We have increased the number of mechanics and also of some other people such as those in the electronics department. I do not see any major problems at the start of the season, but towards the end, with the final race coming at the end of November, it will mean that the whole organisational job for 2012 has to start much earlier, possibly in September, October, because you lose the complete month of November, when you would normally be tackling restructuring processes and other tasks you have to deal with at the end of the season. Personally, I look forward to every Formula 1 season,
How do you expect our two drivers to perform?
I expect a good performance from both of them: Sebastien Buemi is in his third season with us, which means he should have the measure of the job and be experienced enough to race well, but it also depends on how good our car will be. Jaime Alguersuari is in his second full season and I also expect a performance increase from his side. If he continues like last year where he improved race by race, showing a really good performance towards the end of the season and if our car runs well, then I expect a good season closing the gap to the teams currently in front of us.
Scuderia Toro Rosso is Red Bull’s junior team, aimed at bringing on young drivers, so what are your thoughts on Daniel Ricciardo joining us as a Friday morning driver?
I am happy that from the young Red Bull Driver pool, we are seeing another highly skilled young driver coming to us, as Ricciardo has shown a good performance level in recent seasons and I don’t see it as an extra work load running him in the first free practice session on Friday mornings at the races. He will learn all the race tracks and get used to Formula 1 and apart from this, it provides us with a good possibility to see where our other two drivers are. I think Toro Rosso is good at this sort of job, as we showed with Vettel.
Sum up your hopes and fears for the coming season
Generally I have no fears, that is in my nature. The first hope is that we perform well, with a good, fast competitive car. Apart from that, we need the drivers and the team to do a good job and if all these components come together then I am convinced we can have a good season and close the gap to our direct competitors.
Are you excited at the thought of another season starting again?
Yes, I am looking forward to it because not racing during the winter time is a stupid loss of time!
From Ferrara, Italy, Giorgio has pretty much done it all in a motor sport career that dates back to 1985, when he worked as a calculation engineer at Ferrari. That was followed by a brief spell rallying with Abarth and then three years as Gerhard Berger’s race engineer with the Scuderia (the big red team, not Toro Rosso!) He then moved to Benetton, engineering world champion Nelson Piquet before rejoining Berger at McLaren where he also engineered Ayrton Senna in 1993. Soon it was time to return to Ferrari, again working with Gerhard and also Jean Alesi. Ascanelli then moved away from the race tracks and built up Maserati’s very successful sports car racing programme from scratch. But when you have had the F1 virus, it stays with you for life and Ascanelli returned to the grand prix scene to head up Scuderia Toro Rosso’s technical operation for the start of 2007. Giorgio lists tennis as one of his hobbies saying, “I can go from pre-game warm-up to total exhaustion without playing a single point!”
Our sixth season, does that make it a critical year?
It doesn’t mean particularly anything, apart from the fact that it is yet another season and we have to do well.
What’s your take on all the new rules and other changes and their potential effect on the racing?
The first one that has to be mentioned is the fact that we are running on Italian rubber. Pirelli comes and joins Formula 1 and makes its return for the first time since 1991, which will probably mean more things to do and a more exciting scenario, given the changes which Formula 1 has gone through in those past twenty years. This has an impact as there is a change in the rule in that the weight distribution has been fixed in the regulations, just to avoid over-expenditure. So we might have some surprises in relation to the behaviour of different compounds on different circuits. The changes in the regulations are effectively in three categories: one, improving safety as we normally do, the second one is to reduce downforce in order to make an overtaking manoeuvre more easy and the most apparent things are the return of KERS, which is effectively a system to grant a boost to the driver when he elects to use it and the adjustable rear wing which means that if a trailing car is following within a reasonably short time (a threshold is yet to be defined) then the trailing driver is allowed to operate a variation in the geometry of the rear wing, in such a way that the downforce and drag are knocked down. This should equate to a speed differential at the end of the straight of about ten kilometres per hour, changing according to different circuits but that is more or less it. This speed differential should allow about one and a half car lengths to be gained by the trailing car in such a way that overtaking becomes easier, but not too easy. So although I believe that the show we offered in 2010 has been a good one, I think we can look forward to 2011 producing something even better.
Last year’s car was the first designed completely in house. Going into the second year of self-sufficiency, have we been more adventurous on the design front?
Last year we didn’t have a wind-tunnel, the CFD was not mature in order to define the car. Therefore, we did not change very much apart from those elements linked to the change of regulation between 2009 and 2010. This year the tools which design the car in its performance aspect, which are again the wind tunnel and CFD, are more mature, which means that although we are still learning how to make the best of them I think we have started using them properly. The change in rules has led us to make some changes and yes, we think we have been a little bit more ambitious than last year. That might be just a presumption, based on logic, but we think we have chosen an ambitious way, because it did make sense to stay conservative, as otherwise we couldn’t possibly achieve a better performance this year than last year, because in a straight fight, we are still characterised by the resources that put us in ninth place (last year) and nothing better than that. For this year, we have to aim for eighth place, because that is our target and I didn’t think that was possible if we had gone with some sort of conventional car. It’s an ambitious way, if it doesn’t work that will be my responsibility and I am going to take it, but I think it’s not like me, not like Franz, not like anyone in Toro Rosso to sit here and accept what our position is. We will try to do better and we will try to fulfil our mission which is at the end of 2011, we want to have a 2012 which is better than 2011.
The drivers are more experienced, so are we expecting more from them this year?
The drivers are young and enthusiastic even if experience is not their forte. Sebastien is coming into his third season now and we are at the point where we can expect to get something back. The growth of Jaime has been impressive: let’s still keep in mind that Jaime will turn 21 on the Wednesday in Melbourne and he is effectively already in his third season. Yes, it is true to say that in 2010, they did not have the best chances because of their lack of experience, but I think the car was not better than them. I think they deserved the car and the car deserved them more than anything else. Hopefully we are going to deliver a better car and hopefully they are going to improve in their job. And of course this will give us a better package for the future. The Red Bull strategy of following young talent and bringing them into Formula 1 as a sort of nursery has got its best expression in Sebastian Vettel who won the championship after starting with Toro Rosso. Hopefully the same will happen with them, but not just yet though!
What are your hopes, fears and expectations for 2011?
My expectations are to do a decent year and we have to have the target to be eighth and as I said, we are good to be ninth but we have to do better. And at the end of the year we have to bring back an eighth place.
This is the second Faenza era for Team Manager Fantuzzi, as he worked here with Minardi from 1998 to 2001 as a race engineer, before joining Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2006. In 2009, he took on a new role, relinquishing the job of General Manager to return to the race tracks as Team Manager. Like all young boys living in Modena, he was infected with the racing virus at an early age and joined Ferrari as a mechanic when he was just 16-years-old. He spent 22 years with the Prancing Horse, most of that time working as an engineer on the test and race team. He also took a break from Formula One, moving to the United States to get involved with the company’s IMSA programme. “When I was young, I used to go karting, but I did just enough to know that I was much too slow,” says Gianfranco. “I always preferred what goes on behind the scenes in racing and so, after race engineering at Minardi, I moved to the role of Logistics Manager with the Toyota F1 team.” However, a few years ago, he returned to his spiritual home and, as team manager, spends much of his time with his head buried in the F1 rule book.
We are facing the longest season in the sport’s history. How does that affect the logistical side of the team?
As you know there are 20 races this year, but because of the testing ban, we have changed our structure just like every other team, so the race team has to also do all the tests. Therefore, we should really talk about 25 events, not just 20 races. It’s a lot of time, a long time away from home. In order to make life easier for the guys, we are trying to work shifts, to rotate the personnel, otherwise it gets very demanding, on a personal level especially for those with families.
Has it been much more complicated planning for this year?
Not really, the standard, the template, is more or less the same. There’s one more race, which is India and every time you go to a new country it’s a little bit more difficult but nothing impossible. It’s really the number of events rather than the type of events.
At the track we will be dealing with KERS. How has the team planned for that?
KERS is new for us. We were ready to use it in 2009 but we decided not to. There are some safety concerns and safety issues, but we have initiated an extensive training and learning programme over the winter, going through all potential situations than can arise when working with this system. Our KERS supplier, Ferrari, has given us all the measures and all the procedures we need to apply and we train at the factory on a daily basis.
This is the second year without refuelling, so what lessons have been learned regarding pit stops?
The pit stop now is more of a strategic importance than before. Up to the beginning of last year, the refuelling time was covering more or less all the mistakes made when changing wheels. Now you have to be really trained and you have no space for mistakes and every pit stop has to be done with the best performance possible. You lose positions very easily with this procedure in this type of pit stop. Last year, we were not so happy with our performance in this area, because we were okay, but not particularly successful, so we are training daily since the start of the year to improve.
What are your hopes for 2011?
Winning? Maybe it’s too much, even though we never stop dreaming about it. To do our best. To do a professional job and to try to get every little bit out of everything. No mistakes, be very professional and learn race after race, day by day. Sooner or later the results will come.
When you compete in races known as “Grand Prix,” it’s useful to have someone in your team who understands what those two words mean, even if this is not our French Chief Engineer’s main role. Laurent Mekies is well qualified for the job, with a Masters degree in Automotive Engineering obtained in Paris, which included a final year at the UK’s Loughborough University, something of a hotbed for race engineers in Britain. Laurent’s entire working life has been spent trackside, first with a Formula 3 team, before eventually tasting F1 with the Arrows team in 2001. A year later he joined Minardi as a race engineer and has been in Faenza ever since, taking on the role of Chief Engineer when Scuderia Toro Rosso was born.
How will the new rules affect what we see on track?
There is the KERS obviously which is probably the most important one, there is the moveable rear wing and there are some changes in the aero regulations in general. I think we have to remember that we are coming from an exceptional season as guys were fighting for the championship until the very last race. I think for the fans everyone delivered a very good show, so you are not aiming at having something radically different. The moveable rear wing and the KERS should help boost the number of overtaking moves you will see during the season which is good for the spectacle. I think we are starting from a very good base in terms of how good the show was for the spectators in 2010.
Tell us more about the KERS
Engineering-wise it’s a great challenge. We understand that it is also the direction that the general automotive industry is taking, with electric engines and recoverable energy. So for us it’s an excellent challenge. The fact our KERS comes from Ferrari is also a big advantage as Ferrari was one of the very few teams that was using KERS two years ago, so obviously we will benefit from their experience in that field. They have improved it further, therefore we are looking forward to using the KERS and optimising the system.
The drivers are going to be very busy in the cockpit
The workload for the driver, with the KERS and the rear wing will be increased. There is a lot to do, both in terms of how well we charge the system while the car is braking and in terms of how well we will use the power coming out of the corners or while attempting an overtaking manoeuvre. The number of situations that can be tackled with the system is very high and it is going to be a big part of the challenge for the race engineers and also for the drivers. The drivers are going to be very busy, both in trying to release the energy at what we think is the best moment for lap time optimisation or while trying to do an overtaking manoeuvre and, on top of that, he will be busy in the braking phase, when he has to recharge the KERS, so this will have an influence on the balance of the car during the braking phase and it is something he will be able to play with during the race, trying to rebalance the degradation of the tyres, to rebalance the fuel load on the car. He will also have to deal with the amount of energy he wants to recover under braking. So it’s going to be very challenging for the crews and the drivers.
How will you manage this situation from the pits, running the KERS and the rear wing?
At the moment we are in the simulation phase, so we are trying to simulate all the possible combinations and try to define what we think is the optimum for every type of condition. Once this is done, we will advise our drivers on what we believe is the best
What are your expectations for 2011?
I think that as a competitor we certainly want to keep our position ahead of the three new teams. That will be the first target to keep ahead of these three in performance terms. So we are hoping to raise our level to do that. The next target is the guys we were fighting with towards the end of the last season, very good teams like Sauber, Williams and Force India. It will be a case of seeing which of these teams will have produced the best interpretation to suit the rules.
What is the best thing about Toro Rosso?
The best thing here is the atmosphere. When I started here it was actually a question for me, why in some teams people would not leave, because in F1 there is always quite a high turnaround and there is much less of that here. Why? It is down to the atmosphere as there is a very strong team-spirit and people help each other. It creates a very strong bond between the guys and we are all enjoying doing what we do. In the end, we are all motor racing fans first before being mechanics or engineers and that’s what creates the great spirit here.
OTHER KEY PEOPLE BIOGRAPHIES
Ben Butler – Chief Designer
Our new Chief Designer learned his trade through a design apprenticeship with Lotus Engineering, spending six years with the company. From then on, the Englishman’s entire Formula 1 career has been spent in the glamorous surroundings of Milton Keynes. He joined Stewart Grand Prix in 1998, working on gearbox, hydraulics and chassis systems. Ben stayed with the team when it changed its name to Jaguar Racing, again working mainly on mechanical systems and had to change his Business Cards once again when Jaguar metamorphosed into Red Bull Racing, acting as the liaison between the design department and the race track for the team’s first season in 2005. When Red Bull acquired Minardi to create Scuderia Toro Rosso, he was seconded to the Italian team and was heavily involved in setting it up. From then until September 2009 he was Head of Scuderia Toro Rosso Installation, until packing his suitcase and moving to Faenza where he took on the role of Chief Designer.
Nicolo Petrucci – Head of Aerodynamics
Having studied Aeronautical Engineering in Milan, our Aero man started his career in 1991 with the Ferrari F1 team as a computational fluid dynamics engineer. Nicolo stayed with the Prancing Horse until 2000, by which time he was Aerodynamics project leader. Looking for a change, he then worked as Head of Aero for Arrows, then Jordan, Toyota and Honda before joining Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2008.
Pierluca Magaldi – Head of Quality Control
Magaldi is a relative newcomer to Formula 1, never having worked in the sport until he joined Scuderia Toro Rosso back in 2007. However, he is an old hand when it comes to quality control. Back in 1998, he joined Magneti Marelli’s R&D dept as prototype testing leader for fuel system components. Three years later he switched to their Quality department, ensuring that their gasoline and methane injectors were fit for purpose, where he worked on product validation with major OEM car manufacturers. In 2006, he joined SITI, a company specialising in gearboxes for industrial transmissions,
Robert Monni – Head of Purchasing and Production
The man in charge of sourcing and manufacturing all the parts for the team must find this a really easy job, given that we only have to produce two cars all year, whereas, before joining Scuderia Toro Rosso, Monni worked for the Volkswagen car company in Germany, in the Forward Sourcing department, providing the link between the design, quality and sales and marketing departments, sourcing components for cars at the top of the German manufacturer’s range. However, given that a road car can take years to reach the showroom and a Formula 1 car is turned round in a matter of months, his current role is equally, if not more demanding. Monni has been with the team since 2006 when he worked as a buyer for mechanical and composite parts, before heading up the purchasing office since April 2007. In 2008 he became of head of procurement, responsible for the production and purchasing side, acting as the link between design and development and manufacturing, overseeing Scuderia Toro Rosso’s metamorphosis into a stand-alone constructor. Making sure the factory meets all its assembly targets for the races is his main priority.
CAR TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Official car name: Engine: Chassis material: Bodywork material: Front suspension:
Rear suspension:
Steering: Gearbox: Clutch: Calipers: Pads and discs: Cooling system (radiators, heat exchangers): Cockpit instrumentation: Seat belts: Steering wheel: Driver’s seat:
Extinguisher system: Wheels: Fuel cell: Overall weight:
STR6 Ferrari V8 Type 056 + KERS Composite monocoque structure Carbon fibre composite Upper and lower carbon wishbones, torsion bar springs and anti-roll bars, Sachs dampers Upper and lower carbon wishbones, torsion bar springs and anti-roll bars, Sachs dampers Scuderia Toro Rosso Seven-speed hydraulic Sachs pull-type Brembo Brembo
Scuderia Toro Rosso Scuderia Toro Rosso OMP . Scuderia Toro Rosso Carbon fibre construction, Moulded to driver’s shape Scuderia Toro Rosso/FEV Advanti Racing ATL 640 kg (including driver and camera)
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