Toro Rosso’s reliability has been “horrible”

2015 Hungarian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost says the poor reliability of his team’s car is undermining its bid to end the year in the top half of the F1 field.

“Our main problem is our reliability.” said Tost in today’s FIA press conference. “We have really good chassis, we have two high-skilled, young but measured drivers.”

“The team is doing a reasonably good job but our reliability is horrible, because from 18 possibilities to see the end of the race we managed only to do it ten times.

“That means eight not finishes and with this high figure you cannot expect to finish in a position like it’s our goal, in the fifth position in the constructors’ championship. I hope that in the second half of the season we will improve our reliability and I hope that we will come to the end of the races because if we are in the race most of the time we were in the positions to score points.”

Toro Rosso has scored seven points in the last seven races and lies eighth in the constructors’ championship table. Carlos Sainz Jnr has retired three times with a technical problem; team mate Max Verstappen has done so twice and also crashed out of two races.

2015 Hungarian Grand Prix

    Browse all 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix articles

    Author information

    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...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    4 comments on “Toro Rosso’s reliability has been “horrible””

    1. We don’t know if either driver are the real deal because they’re both rookies and only really measured against themselves (the fact that other rookies like Nasr and Magnussen last year were also pretty good from the get go sure makes it less special) We also don’t really know if they just look good s rookies because driving an F1 car is a lot easier now than it used to be according to those who have been around long enough to have drivin in multiple F1 era’s.

      What we do know is that Verstappen is highly regarded by some very creditable people in the paddock. However, we also do know that so far Sainz has out qualified ánd out raced Verstappen and didn’t crash or spin out of a race yet. He has 1 pt less but that’s not saying much. I think Sainz is the rookie of the yr so far.

      1. Fikri Harish (@)
        25th July 2015, 10:06

        I’m starting to get tired of this.
        When they said that driving an F1 car is easier, they don’t mean it’s actually easier, they just meant that it’s a much less physically strenous act than it was decades ago.

        It’s still phenomenally hard to drive one the way it was meant to be driven. To be fast in a modern F1 car in your rookie season, you still have to be really, really good.

        Give modern F1 drivers the credit they deserve. Those twitchy beasts require a different skill set than classic F1 cars, but they’re by no means easier to drive.

    2. Does Franz Tost include driver reliability in those figures? Max’s approach to use the Toro Rosso as a snowplow in Monaco for example, is that included in the reliability figures he uses?

      1. To the Max !
        25th July 2015, 21:16

        He just talks about all the things which have happened to Carlos and Max which have costed them a lot of points.

        Carlos lost a couple of points that way (but also gained a few points points by it) and Max should have had close to 30 points right now, so right now, Toro Rosso could have been 5th in the constructor standings without all the mechanical woes and botched pit stops.

    Comments are closed.