Scuderia Toro Rosso launches in Valencia

Shortly after 9 o’clock this morning, in the pit lane at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit, Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi pulled the wraps off the STR 6, the car with which Scuderia Toro Rosso will tackle the 2011 Formula 1 World Championship.

While the livery featuring the famous red bull remains pretty much the same, underneath the paintwork, the STR6 is radically different to its predecessor.

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.

The Joy of Six

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.