Toro Rosso STR8 launch: First pictures

2013 F1 cars

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The Toro Rosso STR8 is ready for the start of testing ahead of the 2013 season.

The STR8 is the first car designed by the team’s new technical department heads James Key and Luca Furbatto.

Team principal Franz Tost says he expects the team to finish sixth in the constructors’ championship this year.

Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne remain to drive the latest car from Red Bull’s junior team, who ended last year in ninth place.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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57 comments on “Toro Rosso STR8 launch: First pictures”

  1. I love their new livery, it’s so original and different…

    1. I think McLaren have used the same livery for the longest now. Same since 2007. STR same since 2009.

      1. I think Ferrari might just have the edge on Mclaren…

      2. But it’s pretty much unchanged since their very first season back in 2006, the Bull just got a bit smaller.

        For me Toro Rosso are by some distance the most faceless team on the grid, and having the same middling livery year after year really doesn’t help.

        1. Probably a result of being the “other” Red Bull team.

        2. Its their team colours (think Ferrari, Marlboro Mclaren, JPS Lotus), why do we want the livery to change every year?

    2. They have removed the red and added more gold on the nose, unfortunately…
      New numbers though! …But I preferred their older ones :P

    3. More Red Bull logos than the Red Bull itself

      1. @jeff1a My thoughts exactly!

    4. @davef1 – Nice sarcasm :)

  2. the nose looks so sharp…..meant to pierce other’s gearboxes :p

    1. It looks really odd…
      From the side it looks pretty good but from the front it looks horrible, very wide and flat. Despite the lowered noses since the beginning of last year the noses still seem very tall and because they’re so wide it makes it look even worse. When they announced they were going to lower the noses back in 2011 I was excited as I was expecting cars with properly low noses, like in 2008, sloping low noses. And with that came the thought that they would be narrow as well, however with teams trying to maximise airflow under the car, noses have looked appalling not to mention the stepped ones…

    2. Thank god Maldonado is not driving a Toro Rosso this year ;)

      1. Why? A crashed/destroyed Toro Rosso might look better!

        1. Well, he’s been said to use his car as a weapon, and what better weapon than a pointy, angry Toro Rosso? ;)

      2. @andae23 @nick-uk he would crash his Toro Rosso into anthr car and damage the other gearbox….LOL

    3. @malleshmagdum Best looking one so far I reckon.

  3. petebaldwin (@)
    4th February 2013, 16:48

    Nice looking car but I couldn’t be more bored of that livery now.. Come on STR, give us something new!

    1. It’s a shame they’ve removed the swirls and patterns. I was hoping they’d have added more.

      1. I am with you guys, on that, it gave the car a nice and artistic look. Especially comined with the hand painted bull on it.

  4. I’d be surprised if they bring that to the races…

  5. First thought was “at least we’ll be able to tell the difference between RBR and STR this year”

  6. yawnworthy. come on f1 be like thr 90s again and give us new liveries every year

  7. The nose looks quite interesting, with a steep drop off.

    1. Aye – certainly looks very high.
      They may be exploiting the ‘vanity panel’ loophole as predicted by scarbs?…

      1. looks like the vanity panel ends about 8 cm before the nose tip, if you look at the pictures, you can see its edges all around, not seamless like Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren for example

  8. I think it’s ironic that Red Bull has Infiniti splashed all over the side of it and Toro Rosso has Red Bull…
    We’ll be able to tell them apart, but it may get a bit confusing!

    1. @bradley13 Imagine the confusion for a newbie like @pratik007 without following up off season, He would be wondering how Vettel ended up in an infiniti-Toro Rosso!

  9. Well lets hope they can do more than just go str8

    1. Nice one :)

    2. Haha, yeah nice one. Laughed so much. :D

  10. Team principal Franz Tost says he expect the team to finish sixth in the constructors’ championship this year.

    To set your goals high is good, but to expect sixth place sounds a little unrealistic to me. Or have they already worked miracles in the design office this winter?

    Btw, there’s a typo at expects.

    1. To me it seems singularly unambitious to be aiming for 6th. place, especially from a team so closely connected to the #1 team.

      1. They’re a proving ground for Webber’s seat and not much more.

        Red Bull certainly don’t pour anywhere near the resources into the team, although I read in an interview with James Key that he was surprised how relatively large and well equipped the aero department was, the difficulty was how the different departments were run and their communication with each was also a problem. In any case this is still a small Italian-based team. Middle of the pack is aspirational let alone getting close to Red Bull.

    2. To set your goals high is good, but to expect sixth place sounds a little unrealistic to me.

      Spot on. I know I laughed when I read that bit from Franz Tost. The regulations haven’t changed much since last year and the car is probably an evolution of their 2012 effort, in a way. That means an evolution of the car that struggled to beat the Caterhams in a couple of races, for god’s sake. How big of a contribution should Key have in order for Torro Rosso to leap ahead of Sauber, Force India and Williams in less than one year? To me it just sounds a bit unrealistic… Sure, they might be able to mix it up a little with the midfield every other race but that’s it…

      1. the car is probably an evolution of their 2012 effort

        James Key said in an interview yesterday that 97% of the components have changed.

        1. @tdog – That doesn’t necessarily mean all of those parts are brand new / newly developed ones. A high percentage of them might still be largely based on the 2012 specs with just a few tweaks here and there.

          I don’t want to contradict Key on this matter as I’ve missed the interview and I’m sure he’s much more qualified than I am to talk about the car he built, but I still find it hard to believe any team on the grid will have a car modified in such a high proportion compared to what they ran last year…

          And even if…I still find it hard to believe Torro Rosso has what it takes to be the first runner-up behind 5 teams that are lining up a world champion each.

    3. I see it the same as Perez going for winning the WDC this year. The moment you stop being ambitious in sports, you can just as well stay home.

      Sure, 6th is not going to be easy, but if they want the drivers to show Red Bull potential and have given them a car that is in the mix for solid points, its exactly what they should do – try and get it on the podium at least once and score double digit points regularly.

  11. Regarding the livery, Liverys only ever really change because of changes to sponsor or manufacturer deals or something similar, Its always been that way.

    Neither Red Bull or STR are ever going to suddenly change there livery massively because there both using the Red Bull brand colors. Only way they will ever change is if Red Bull the brand suddenly opt for a totally different brand look.

    I think Lotus should copy the Dragon Racing Indycar team & use actual Gold rather than Beige-
    http://crowsneststpete.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/3.-INDY.jpg
    I adored that livery, Just a shame the Lotus Indycar engine’s were as bad as they were resulting in Dragon racing switching to Chevrolet & ditching that livery :(

  12. Has anyone ever wondered why they put Red Bull on their livery instead of Toro Rosso? I often get confused which team I’m watching on tv. The colours are so similar that the only way I can tell is by the ones that are in the mid-back field. And it seems reading the comments, I’m not the only one.

    1. @paulocreed

      If I am not mistaken it doesn’t really make a difference. Isn’t Red Bull, when translated into Italian, Toro Rosso ?

      1. Yes that is the translation. But wouldn’t it be easier to notice a Toro Rosso if the livery said Toro Rosso in place of Red Bull, so that the viewer would not be confused with the Red Bull Team? That’s the only point I’m trying to make.

        1. thatscienceguy
          4th February 2013, 21:48

          Their sponsor is Red Bull. You tend to put the sponsors name on the car, not the team name.

    2. its because therz no brand named Toro Rosso. U can buy a Red Bull drink in the shop, not at Toro Rosso. They named the team Toro Rosso as a marketing strategy

  13. Was that nose cone made by Hattori Hanzo from the Kill Bill movie franchise ?

    It looks as sharp as a samurai sword. Very ideal for tire puncturing opponents! Maybe the Toro Rossos can bulldoze the field for Seb and Webber ?

  14. Zantkiller (@)
    4th February 2013, 18:29

    Well it is in my opinion the best looking car shown so far but I have a feeling it will fail to impress performance wise.

    1. +1, I think the nose looks gorgeous and they have really exploited the vanity panel, but I agree with some and think that that nose would look like a razor blade with the vanity panel off.

      It is really also really strange that they have changed the heads of their technical team yet have still managed to design a car with undercut side pods, whoever is responsible for designing those side pods could probably sell tea to China, cause year after year they appear on the car and it is never very quick!

  15. Thinking away from this precise subject, but what would happen if Torro Rosso were regularly threatening to beat the Red Bull cars? I know that Vettel won once for TR, but supposing TR was having a genuine affect on the chances of a RB Championship win.
    Would Marko or Matteschitz (sic) tell them to turn the wick down or do you think the two teams would actually be allowed to compete?

    1. Drop Valencia!
      4th February 2013, 23:35

      I’m sure M would allow it, marketing GOLD!

    2. Toro Rosso beat them fair and square in 2008, but there’s a lot of water under the bridge since then. Considering how well funded Red Bull are it’s unlikely to happen, but if it did who knows? Maybe Vettel would jump back into his old seat!

    3. I think the moment that happens, Red Bull will have found the replacement not just for Webber or even Vettel but Adrian Newey as well and will be very happy indeed!

  16. I know I say this every year, but I wish they would adopt the red bull light colours, that way it would look less of red bull’s b team. It is probably that red bull and red bull light are rival companies like with coca cola, but even so.

    1. they could just go blue and silver like the regular cans, never really understood the gold anyway.

      1. The gold if from their sponsor Falcon Bank @scuderia29

  17. keith, those pictures of the rear end are brilliant, the lighting and quality of the image makes it realy interesting to see the suspension and aero detailing. more pics like this!!!

  18. This car, despite it’s usual colour scheme, looks great, particularly the front end. Sharp and aggressive. IMO the Mercedes is by far the worst looking car with the worst livery – I don’t know what it is about it, I just can’t stand looking at it. It looks ‘cheap’.

    On a separate note, I love seeing Ricciardo in photos…always looks pumped to be in F1. Biggest smile ever. JEV not bothered.

  19. I like the hawk beak or protruding nail look of the hose and how thin it is.

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