Jerez Test Recap

After unveiling the STR8 in the pit lane on Monday, Scuderia Toro Rosso got right down to work through the balance of the week getting an understanding of how their new car performs. Four days and 330 trouble free laps later, they now have a 'base line' from which to begin making it better.   

Daniel Ricciardo piloted the STR8 through the first two days, as the squad ran basic systems checks, and then evaluated it's race trim performance. Jean-Eric Vergne took over driving duties on Thursday, running trough two days of set-up/aero and colling systems evaluations. Both drivers seemede to take to the new car quickly and, while testing times - especially in the first test of the pre-season - probably don't mean too much, were able to log some of the quickest lap times of each day.

After all was done, Team Principal Franz Tost declared himself to be satisfied with what the squad had accomplished at Jerez.

“The car showed reasonable potential, and reliability was not too bad, which meant we completed a respectable number of laps, first with Daniel and then with Jean-Eric. In contrast to this test last year when they were rookies, both of them knew what to do and what to expect.

“However, the two of them had to get used to working with new race engineers, and that part of the test also progressed well. There is absolutely no point in talking about car performance at this stage. The most important task we face now is to analyze everything we have done over the past four days in Jerez, so as to decide what our priorities will be in Barcelona in eleven days’ time, when we start the second test session.”