Toro Rosso to Run 2007 Car for Start of 2008 F1 Season
Though he may be hard-pressed to find loads of support in the motorsports community, Sebastian Vettel of Formula One’s Toro Rosso team believes that using last year’s car will be an advantage in the early going of the 2008 season.
The Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso team plans to run an evolutionary version of its 2007 car, the STR2B, instead of a brand new machine, for the first three or for races of the upcoming season.
(Click through the jump to read more about Toro Rosso’s 2008 plans.)
Though this strategy has worked well in the past for front-running teams, it’s less clear that it can provide strong results for a team that struggled for most of last year.
Vettel believes however, that using the existing car could result in greater reliability and better finishes for Toro Rosso. Said the driver, “I see it as a benefit to start the season with a car I know and that has overcome reliability issues in the last quarter of the '07 season.
Comments
Russ Bellinis
Ferrari has a huge advantage in owning their own private test track at the factory. They can't replicate every grand prix circuit there, but they can test endlessly for reliability. If Ferrari finds reliability in their 2008 car before the start of the season, Toro Rosso won't have a chance. If Ferrari finds the new car to have some reliability issues, they will run the old car until the new one is completely sorted. Toro Rosso still won't have a chance. Their 2007 car won't do any better against the 2007 Ferrari than it did in 2007.
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