Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost praised driver Pierre Gasly and power unit supplier Honda after the team’s fourth place finish in Bahrain.
“Honda, as well as Toro Rosso, worked very hard during the winter months,” said Tost. “Fortunately we got everything together.
“I must say the Honda research and development department in Sakura has done a fantastic job because the engine is fast and reliable.
Gasly did “an incredibly good job” to bring the car home fourth from fifth on the grid, Tost added.
“Yesterday in qualifying he got everything together. Today [a] good start, fantastic how he fought at the beginning against Magnussen, really defending hard. Then he brought it home without any mistake, nothing. Congratulations, very good job.”
Fourth place was an unexpected reward, said Tost, who expected the team to encounter some difficulties at the beginning of its new relationship with Honda.
“I always said that within the first 10 races I expect hiccups. And later on in the second half of the season I expect both cars permanently within the first 10. That means in qualifying three and also in the race.
“If our development plan from the power unit side and the chassis side goes in the correct direction then we must be there. The fourth place today no doubt was also lucky because Ricciardo [went] out, Verstappen out, Hamilton had some troubles at the beginning. But the race pace was quite good, constant and Pierre didn’t make any mistake.
“The pit stops worked well. That means also if these drivers would’ve been in there we could have finished in sixth, seventh place without any problem.”
Brendon Hartley finished outside the points after collecting a penalty for colliding with Sergio Perez at the start. He is also under investigation for being in the wrong position on the formation lap.
The 10-second penalty in my opinion was quite tough because it was not deliberately he touched Perez,” said Tost. “But it’s a decision from the stewards which we accept and there’s nothing to add.”
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Gabriel (@rethla)
8th April 2018, 18:54
Its always nice to bask in glory but take some lessons from McLaren and do your talking on the track this early in the season instead of jumping the gun in every interviewslot, it can backfire horribly if you are not careful.
John H (@john-h)
8th April 2018, 19:00
Come on, let them have their moment. This is Toro Rosso, it’s been 10 years since they had a result as high as 4th I believe.
MacLeod (@macleod)
8th April 2018, 19:53
Didn’t had Max several 4th position in 2015?
Jere (@jerejj)
8th April 2018, 19:56
@macleod Yes, two to be precise (Hungary and USA that season).
mog
8th April 2018, 22:05
Sainz took a 4th in Singapore last year I think
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
9th April 2018, 9:26
Yes, so there have actually been 4 times Toro Rosso have been 4th in the last 4 years. Not quite like this is the first time in 10 years @john-h. But yet, I agree they should be really pleased by this. It really did look like Honda had the speed this race.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
10th April 2018, 2:14
Yes, coincidentally, when 3 of the top 6 cars retire (2 ferraris and 1 red bull at singapore and now 1 ferrari and 2 red bulls), a toro rosso gets best of the rest!
RB15
8th April 2018, 19:00
Completely unrelated. McLaren ran their mouths in preseason and disappointed on track. Torro Rosso have thus far done the complete opposite!
jenc (@jens)
9th April 2018, 9:54
+1 “Like”
nase
8th April 2018, 19:01
I find it especially amusing that Tost highlights Honda’s ‘reliability’. They had new engine components on both cars …
Gasly’s 4th place was a very impressive showing, no doubt about that. But praising the reliability sounds like mockery.
Gabriel (@rethla)
8th April 2018, 19:36
Ofc. it is straight up mockery :)
You dont see Vettel praising reliability for his two victories.
BasCB (@bascb)
8th April 2018, 19:58
I guess it goes to show where their expectation of the “reliability” on the Honda engines is @nase – looks like they more or less expect something to go wrong on at least one car, so when everything goes fine, it’s worth of praise.
Sundar Srinivas Harish (@sundark)
9th April 2018, 1:22
Second time’s the charm. Now the rest of the midfielders will just wait for the engine penalties to hit, and TRH will be fighting with the Williamses and Saubers.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
8th April 2018, 20:20
@rethla … STR is not McLaren, that’s what McLaren did after Melbourne. STR was done with Renault, withholding components to a buyer is ridiculous, that’s the kind of treatment that led to STR publicly criticize Renault.
Pyon (@pyon)
8th April 2018, 23:22
@peartree “withholding components” uh? they run out of spares if my memory serve me well, trouble on most cars for all 3 teams end of season, so the question (i assume) was more likely “Horner, STR or RBR?”
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
9th April 2018, 19:16
@pyon Renault said they had no new spare parts, but the Renault was doing alright, therefore they forced STR to race with parts they knew were going to fail and indeed they failed. STR wanted to have new components get the penalties and race like any other costumer.
Pyon (@pyon)
9th April 2018, 19:23
@peartree That is not quite the same as “withholding components”, this is F1 you cannot create spare overnight, many actors are involved including (in many cases) third party manufacturers. We could argue Renault should have had expected all the failures and have spares but that is a different conversation.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
9th April 2018, 23:34
@pyon …Withholding components because STR were to become STR Honda.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
8th April 2018, 19:00
As much as I’m thrilled for Toro Rosso, I think this will be their best result of the season – it was a perfect storm of a good car, good PU reliability, good driving, + 3 retirements from the front-running teams. That said, they will definitely aim to finish in the points going forwards, let’s hope they can do so.
BasCB (@bascb)
8th April 2018, 20:01
I pretty much agree on most of those things @phylyp, although I am not sure about the “good PU reliability” if having a brand new set of units work for its very first weekend (of 7 it should work) allows us to say much about reliabilty. Yes, it was not (another) disaster, but can we call it good reliability?
But let’s hope Honda did find their way and the Honda now actuallly IS fast-ish while lasting more than a race weekend or two in a row.
If not, maybe STR have already settled for using 7-10 engines per car this year and thus can use all the power without having to worry about keeping the units good for another 6 weekends!
Phylyp (@phylyp)
9th April 2018, 1:02
@bascb – very fair point. I should have qualified my statement better, since Honda has in recent years had set the bar so low that a car making it to the chequered flag is in itself cause for celebration, and for them to now do so with a good finishing position meant the engine performed without glitches through the weekend.
Forza Maldonado (@forzamaldonado)
8th April 2018, 19:04
This will probably be Toro Rosso’s best finish of the season, but I think this also proves that the Honda engine finally has the power to be competitive. They definitely have the capacity to score points on a regular basis moving forward.
Miani (@miani)
8th April 2018, 19:19
This showed to Red Bull that Honda is good to go (performance wise at least).
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
8th April 2018, 20:28
@miani Really? the STR and Gasly (new ICE) was solid enough, but there were instances, like Hamilton breezing past Gasly or the actual top speed figures that show STR Honda to be a bit behind still. The gaps are so big that it is hard to judge, apparently you can be 62 sec behind with an underperforming engine.
BasCB (@bascb)
9th April 2018, 6:30
If holding for at least a race weekend (so far) and with speed that is still far from top range (as @peartree mentions) is “good to go” I think you must be seeing a different Red Bull team than I do @miani.
I doubt RBR would settle for less than at least several races (stil a couple to go before mid May) with improvements in power being there too.
Miani (@miani)
9th April 2018, 16:05
I don’t think Honda performance is far from Renault. There’s no way that he could finish 4th if the engine was significately slower, it’s a long straight and he kept Magnussen (with a Ferrari engine) right behind most of the race. It’s just my opinion.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
9th April 2018, 19:18
@miani
Considering Gasly was 62 seconds away I think you can, if your car is good enough.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
10th April 2018, 2:19
I don’t get the point, gasly is on a toro rosso, a B team, there’s no comparison between them and any other car to red bull, ferrari and mercedes, that’s another race basically.
What red bull should see is that gasly on a honda engine was faster than the best performing haas, mclaren and renault driver, they’re all good drivers or drivers who are racing well lately, and the chassis of some of those should really be better than toro rosso’s.
Therefore, performance wise, honda might be past renault, red bull is on another planet cause their aero\chassis is top level.
However I’m the first who wouldn’t easily switch to honda, they’ve been a disaster till now, let’s see if they can keep this strong pace before switching.
Dom (@3dom)
8th April 2018, 20:05
Now this is what sport is all about! There were so many negative comments when the switch to Honda power at Toro Rosso was announced, about how they were going to be trundling around at the back of the grid. But everyone has gotten their heads down, worked hard and it has paid divedends. No complaints when they had their failures at the first Grand Prix. Even from testing you got the idea that they were a team pulling in the same direction. They’ve gotten on about it in the correct manner (further highlighted by how other teams have behaved in the not too distant past), and so it makes it more of a delight to see the engineers and team members’ beaming smiles and celebrations at such a great result. Some fortune was needed, admittedly, but hopefully this positivity can be a springboard for them to carry on being competitive. Congratulations
Duncan Snowden
8th April 2018, 20:38
Gasly: “Now we can fight!”. Heheheh… :)
I tend to share others’ reservations over how long they’ll be able to keep this up, but c’mon… STR scoring Honda’s best hybrid-era finishing position in only their second race after all the bellyaching from McLaren is hilarious.
Forza Minardi!
Deej92 (@deej92)
8th April 2018, 23:31
Delighted for this team and Honda. People wrote them off when they announced the switch and were touted to be near the bottom but they’ve certainly proved they have a decent package and the engine is good enough to deliver this sort of result with some luck. Promising for Horner also.
James (@knewman)
9th April 2018, 3:18
Great result, but did everyone forget the Honda internals literally going up in smoke during the previous race? I really do hope this is a turning point for Honda, but I’d exercise a bit more caution before making a declaration like that.
Makes you think, perhaps McLaren should have done what Red Bull did with their Renault engine a few years back, renaming it to a Tag Heur. They could have called it an Acura, or maybe a Michael Kors XD
Sun Siyuan (@peking901)
9th April 2018, 6:57
Some people said Honda is still a mess after Australia, and now they praised Honda’s speed. I guess we’d better keep our thought until summer break or at least back to Europe.
iCarbs (@icarby)
9th April 2018, 15:33
I hope they will do a representative Amazon film to show the difference in what Torro Rosso and Honda did vs Mclaren and Honda.
This result was one of the best moments of the weekend’s grand prix and was ecstatic when Gasly finished 4th. TR and Honda will need to keep working hard to ensure that the drivers get the car they need but let them have the moment as others have mentioned.