Patronise F1

Patronising F1 since 2007

Wednesday
May 23rd
Text size
  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

STR plan "more aggressive" nose solution

E-mail Print PDF

The Toro Rosso team could have developed an even more aggressive version of 2012's 'platypus nose' designs for their STR7 machine, according to technical chief Giorgio Ascanelli, and will seek to implement such a design as soon as possible.

The nose of the STR7 is one of the more aggressive versions of the ugly stepped noses that have been seen so far from 2012's new breed of car.

The Toro Rosso car features a super-slim end to the nose, while the step up to the rest of the chassis features two fins on either side to help the STR7 meet the height requirements from the FIA.

But despite their design already looking like one of the more innovative solutions to 2012's new nose height limits, Ascanelli has admitted that the team ran out of time to get their preferred "aggressive" design onto the launch car.

"I think we could have been more aggressive, but at the end of the day the fact that we had to homologate the car before running here just cut down our development time," he lamented after the STR7 was launched in Jerez.

He explained: "Really, we got to that point when it was time to launch the impact campaign. There are [other] solutions being studied.

"I am not going to do another chassis, but I think I am going to do another nose. Like we did last year, but last year it took a little bit too long. Hopefully this year we are better prepared for it."

The STR7 is the third Toro Rosso machine designed in-house, after the FIA banned the use of customer cars that the team was sourcing from parent team Red Bull.

And the designer bragged that the design team had made even more steps forward with their latest car, after expanding their workforce further.

"The team has also been able to undercut the sidepods even more than last year, with the radiator inlets being quite small, because it has fitted another cooling inlet underneath the airbox," he explained.

"We have raised the sidepods again and moved the cooling behind the head of the driver. It's a shorter chassis, with a longer gearbox, so we will see."

Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost has targeted seventh place in the constructors championship as their aim, after the team finished eighth in 2011 with Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari.