Toro Rosso Team Principal Franz Tost has emphasised that new power unit partner Honda has made “a lot of progress” over the winter, after the STR13 made its debut during testing at Barcelona.
Toro Rosso, after a handful of years of switching between Renault and Ferrari power, has entered into a long-term deal with Honda, which endured three fraught years with McLaren.
The McLaren-Honda partnership yielded a best race result of only fifth, and the operation twice finished ninth in the standings, amid reliability and performance setbacks.
Tost, though, expressed encouragement over the manufacturer’s off-season gains, believing the situation to be beneficial for Toro Rosso.
“We’ve had very busy months, as you can imagine, in November, December, January, also February,” Tost said.
“There were absolutely no problems from the communication side.
“As you know, we from Toro Rosso started to prepare ourselves for this co-operation, we had a couple of lessons in Faenza on how to communicate with Japanese companies, with Honda.
“I think it was very useful to get an idea of the way of thinking because it’s a completely different culture and the seminars had a very positive result.
“We have a really good relationship with Honda and it was a completely new start for Toro Rosso, we are a works team, we are the only team who is working with Honda this year.
“There are so many possibilities, especially from the technical side, it’s a big advantage for STR to work with such a big company as Honda.”
Toro Rosso’s relationship with previous partner Renault soured during its closing months, while the McLaren-Honda partnership was fractious, amid ongoing issues.
Tost, though, was full of praise for Honda, commenting: “I don’t see any problems, the power unit is working quite well and I am convinced Honda has the capacity and the know-how to develop the engine from to a level that we will be there, where we expect to be and this is how it is.
“I see it as very, very positive because Honda have made a lot of progress in the last months on the reliability side as well as the performance side, so we are looking forward to the season.”
