2017 Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 Team - Renault

[loner]

Toro Rosso: Too early to assume Gasly and Kvyat will be '18 drivers
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13230 ... sso-lineup

[kptaylor]

What if they run Palmer in the STR car at the USGP if Gasly does Suzuka? Has Renault powertrain experience and has driven '17 cars. Would prefer to see Kubica, Buemi or even Vergne though.

[godlameroso]

Buemi would be at the top of the list. Brandon Hartley would be my next choice, luckily it's not up to me.

[Vasconia]

After watching the race I take it back. He's quite decent and should be fine along Kvyat. I wonder if they'll be behind Sauber next year.

I think Honda will make a decent progress. Its up to TR to build a better chasis than this year´s. I was expecting much more from them.

[etusch]

I assume that TR will built at least a better chassis than FI. I hope Honda will be at least same level with Renault PU. If Renault works team do better job TR could be 5th if not 4th.

[Singabule]

It is too early to be 4th fastest, i think they will battle for 5th or 6th next year. Honda switch is just too late for them. Without enough time to design, increase in budget from honda cannot be fully utilized for next year car

[HPD]

Masashi Yamamoto:
"Before Carlos Sainz was transferred to Renault, we said we wanted Pierre Gasly to run for us in the Super Formula. But now, it is a fact, Pierre Gasly must drive in the United States instead of Sainz. We think the priority is Formula 1, of course. It is the summit of motorsport. If there is a possibility of having someone else instead of Pierre Gasly, of course, we would be delighted to have him in the Super Formula, but Formula 1 is the priority, "

"There is a very competitive driver who could drive in Austin and discussions are ongoing. Can you really do it or not? We are not very sure. So if you can, then we will be happy to have Pierre Gasly in the Super Formula, but if that is not possible then Pierre Gasly should drive to Austin. The decision will be announced by Toro Rosso this week. We have already discussed this and now we are awaiting your response. It is easier to find a Super Formula driver than Formula 1 "

Helmut Marko:
"Pascal Wehrlein is not on our list. To replace Daniil Kvyat we study some alternatives, there may be a surprise ",

[restless]

It is too early to be 4th fastest, i think they will battle for 5th or 6th next year. Honda switch is just too late for them. Without enough time to design, increase in budget from honda cannot be fully utilized for next year car

This is best case scenario - IF Honda delivers AND TR is able to make decent chassis.
I'd expect they can start fighting for 5th around mid season

[Vasconia]

Masashi Yamamoto:
"Before Carlos Sainz was transferred to Renault, we said we wanted Pierre Gasly to run for us in the Super Formula. But now, it is a fact, Pierre Gasly must drive in the United States instead of Sainz. We think the priority is Formula 1, of course. It is the summit of motorsport. If there is a possibility of having someone else instead of Pierre Gasly, of course, we would be delighted to have him in the Super Formula, but Formula 1 is the priority, "

"There is a very competitive driver who could drive in Austin and discussions are ongoing. Can you really do it or not? We are not very sure. So if you can, then we will be happy to have Pierre Gasly in the Super Formula, but if that is not possible then Pierre Gasly should drive to Austin. The decision will be announced by Toro Rosso this week. We have already discussed this and now we are awaiting your response. It is easier to find a Super Formula driver than Formula 1 "

Helmut Marko:
"Pascal Wehrlein is not on our list. To replace Daniil Kvyat we study some alternatives, there may be a surprise ",

"very competitive driver"...is Alonso going to driver for TR in Austin?

I would like to see Kubika back but as Nico stated, is much better to wait and see if Williams becomes a real choice. Past experiences show us how difficult is to driver a F1 car after so much time without doing it.

[dren]

I wonder if it is Kubica or somebody from Indy. That would be wild if Honda picked a driver from one of their Indy teams. Sato maybe? That would be great PR.

[etusch]

It is too early to be 4th fastest, i think they will battle for 5th or 6th next year. Honda switch is just too late for them. Without enough time to design, increase in budget from honda cannot be fully utilized for next year car

This is best case scenario - IF Honda delivers AND TR is able to make decent chassis.
I'd expect they can start fighting for 5th around mid season

I have read somewhere that they concentrated too much on front end of the car. If this is true now they can concentrate on back we can see results of those work next year. They have ability to fight for 4th. But I expect Renault will be better. So they can fight 5th or sixth . My last comment I did wrong calculation
Ferrari/ Redbull/merc/McLaren/Renault/Toro Rosso.
I would like to see them 4th

[dren]

I think we can expect a better chassis since they'll have a works PU, but the Honda will still likely be the worst PU. I think we should expect TR to beat Sauber and fight with Haas for 7th. Anything better would be a win for the team.

[ME4ME]

I assume that TR will built at least a better chassis than FI. I hope Honda will be at least same level with Renault PU. If Renault works team do better job TR could be 5th if not 4th.

I think this is way way off, and let me explain why. Toro Rosso hasn't had a great chassi for the last two years. They were good in 2014 & 2015 but merely average since then. Last year they had massive issues with correlation between the wind tunnel and track in the latter part of the season. Also, Toro Rosso is operationally a very weak team compared to their rivals. Strategy and pit stops are below average. Reliability is often not great, and their drivers are making mistakes as a result of them more often than not being junior drivers.

If you look at Honda you could argue that they have the resources in place to improve, but they have yet to show that they can make any substantial gain on their competition. Reliability is still far from acceptable and once the current issues are solved, what more will arise? They will once again have a single team to gather data from, while Renault will have 3; their own as well as two top teams.

And than Toro Rosso's emidiate competition: If the trend continues Force India will have another decent chassis, coupled with the best PU and two very decent drivers. Ocon will improve further still, and the team has learned their lesson regarding letting their drivers race. They trew away a lot of points this year. It shouldn't happen agian. Renault doesn't have the best PU but it's still better than the Honda. Also, they have a lot more resources than Toro Rosso. It should be expected that they build a better chassis than Toro Rosso. Driver wise they will surely have a superior line-up as well. Williams is a bit of an unknown. They have been fairly average regarding both chassis and driver performance, but do have the best PU. The same goes for Haas.

I think it's very likely that Toro Rosso will be at the back of the grid racing Sauber, Haas and possibly Williams for minor points.

[etusch]

More team is better for sure gathering data but finding solution to increase performance is more important. As you can see Renault have 3 teams but they could not achieved their objective of season start ( of course they said this can be because of new architecture ) . Again Ferrari gives one year old engine to sauber. Because they don't need comparation team like Renault. So they can do what they need with their own data. They could try something for different data but I don't know if their deal with haas, gives them this opportunity.
We have expectations for next season. I am looking forward to see 2018 winter testing. We will see what will happen

[WaikeCU]

I'm gonna go ahead and say this. Thinking about how Red Bull will approach this, I think Red Bull are out to create sensation yet again, create exposure, putting the brand Red Bull on display.

The press and the fans go mental when they heard:
- Max Verstappen will be driving for Red Bull for the rest of the season in 2016
- Gasly will drive the following two races for STR

So I'm going ahead and say Sebastien Loeb will be driving in Austin.