Category: Toro Rosso

As we prepare for the 2012 F1 season to start in earnest one of the most intriguing side stories is the Daniel Ricciardo–Jean Eric Vergne rivalry. Both in their first year with Toro Rosso they are in effect taking part in a year-long interview for Mark Webber’s race seat at Red Bull. That’s the commonly held belief anyway.

The pair have competed against each other in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series so have some idea what to expect. The good news for those of us watching with interest is the Toro Rosso top brass have basically said, all gloves are off chaps, get out there and have a crack.

“We’re going to be on the edge. They have said if you make a mistake, it happens. At least we know you’re pushing it,” explained Ricciardo.

“Obviously we’re not going out there trying to crash the car, but sometimes a team needs to see you go off, whether it’s a crash or you run across the grass’ to know that you’re trying to find that limit.

“I’m not going to hold back.”

And that’s excellent news for us.

[Source: tensport]

Overnight the covers came off the Scuderia Toro Rosso STR7. As has become the norm a ‘platypus’ style nose is featured and on the STR7 it’s one of the more elegant examples we’ve seen to date. Although it doesn’t have an intake/scoop as seen on the sister Red Bull car.

Following the fortunes of Toro Rosso takes on extra impetus this year with 22-year-old Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo securing a full time drive. He is joined by 21-year-old Frenchman Jean Eric Vergne.

The pair have raced against each other in junior categories and this intra-team duel shapes as one of the more fascinating aspects of the 2012 F1 season. It’s widely accepted that this year is essentially a job interview for the plum Red Bull Racing drive if this ends up being Mark Webber’s final year with the team.

Franz Tost, Team Principal, says, “We are looking forward to working with our rookie driver line-up of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne, both of whom are very talented young drivers.”

Technical Director, Giorgio Ascanelli, explains one of the overlooked regulation changes this year: “One very significant change concerns the front wing. It was announced quite late in the form of an FIA technical directive: concerned by vibration and excessive deflection of the front wing, for 2012, the governing body has drastically reduced the flexibility of the front wing, allowing it to move by only 10mm instead of 20mm when a 100kg load is applied to it. The need for added stiffness means an increase in weight and so we have a large amount of weight added to the nose of the car, which can be problematic in dealing with the regulation regarding the weight distribution of the car.”

More detail can be read below in the full version of the Toro Rosso press release. Of course, there’s more pics, all accessible as 2000px super images and a brief video as well.

Daniel Ricciardo, the kid with the biggest smile in F1, has answered a few questions following yesterday’s shock announcement that he has secured a full-time drive with Toro Rosso in 2012.

You can read the full Q&A interview, released by Toro Rosso, after the break, but we quite liked this answer to the question about his relationship with new teammate Jean-Eric Vergne.

“We were signed up as part of the Red Bull Junior team on the same day and we were team-mates back then, in the Renault 2.0 series. I spent some time with him at his house in France, going karting together. We had a pretty good relationship by the standard of racing driver team-mates. As we progressed, the rivalry got stronger between us, but the important thing is that we respect one another. We both want to beat each other more than anyone else and it’s been like that since we first raced together.”

Australia has a new motorsport hero; it appears we may also have a new villain!

In something of a surprise move Daniel Ricciardo will drive for Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2012. Joining the young Aussie will be 21-year-old French rookie Jean-Eric Vergne. The general consensus until this announcement was that Toro Rosso would not be making any changes to their driver lineup.

Of course, this decision, made in partnership with Red Bull, now means former drivers Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari are without a drive. There’s not too many seats left, either, and their prospects of securing a full-time F1 seat for next year are slim.

“I am pleased that we have been able to reach an early decision on our drivers for next year, because it means we can all give our full attention to 2012, without any distractions,” said STR Team Principal Franz Tost.

“Over the past year, both Daniel and Jean-Eric have proved their worth and I expect them to make a significant contribution to the team’s performance next year. Daniel has the benefit of having actually raced in Grands Prix for much of this year, while Jean-Eric proved he could adapt quickly to the demands of driving a Formula 1 car.”

“I must also thank Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for all their hard work over the past three seasons,” added Tost.

“However, one has to remember that when Scuderia Toro Rosso was established in 2005, it was done so with the intention of providing a first step into Formula 1 for the youngsters in the Red Bull Junior Driver programme.

“It is therefore part of the team’s culture to change its driver line-up from time to time in order to achieve this goal.”