Toro Rosso could have been more aggressive

The Toro Rosso team presented today the STR7, its 2012 single-seater. It doesn’t really stand out from its rivals and it features the famous “two-tier” front wing.

The person responsible for the design of the STR7, Giorgio Ascanelli, believes that the Italian team could have gone a little further in the design of their car. But ultimately, time ran out before the official unveiling of the vehicle.

I think we could have been more aggressive, but in the end the fact that we homologated the car before these tests halted our development. We reached this point (current) when it was time to launch the car, Giorgio Ascanelli said at the launch of the STR7 in Jerez, quoted by Autosport.

The technical director of the Faenza team, however, made it clear that other solutions are being studied, including a more advanced front wing that could be tested during the season.

I am not going to make another chassis, but I think I will make another nose. As we did last year, but last year it took a little too long. Hopefully this year we are better prepared.

The STR7 is nonetheless an innovative single-seater for Toro Rosso, and the goal is to help the team reach a new level. The designers of the STR7 decided to equip it with a longer gearbox and a shorter chassis to improve aerodynamics.

The team was also able to shorten the pontoons even more than last year, with smaller radiator intakes, because we were able to place another intake under the airbox. We raised the pontoons and placed the cooling behind the driver’s head. It’s a shorter chassis (than in 2011), with a longer gearbox, we’ll see what it will bring, added Ascanelli.