Zoom A new package comes on stream in Hungary

The last three Grand Prix have not been kind for the Toro Rosso Ferrari team as the never ending development race has seen the Italian squad slip back as the season has progressed. With five points from the first three races and then a significant decline, the Italian team hope that the latest raft of revisions will move them back ahead of Force India Mercedes.

"There are several factors why our performance hasn’t matched up to what it was in the second half of last season," explained Technical Director Giorgio Ascanelli. "The first is that the drivers are very important and last year, Vettel matured enormously, getting over the difficult phase every young driver does, not understanding why he was fast or slow.

"A second factor was that last year, within the limits of our own capabilities, we went down a different route to Red Bull Racing, particularly with suspension and the braking system that was different to their car,” Ascanelli continued. "The third point is that last year we were racing in an era where the technical rules had been more or less stable for a decade so performance levels flatten out, making it harder to come up with something new. This year, the pace of development has speeded up enormously and as a small team, we have been unable to keep up with that.

"Today, Red Bull for example is producing large steps forward in development on a monthly basis. We cannot do that as we don’t have the manpower. Furthermore, with a young and inexperienced driver like Buemi, when we do introduce changes, it is naturally harder for him to adapt to those changes," he concluded.

For the Hungarian Grand Prix the STR4 package will feature a new floor, rear wing, brake ducts and nose. It is quite an update and Toro Rosso driver elect Jaime Alguersuari conducted straight line testing of the new package on Thursday at Vairano the team confirmed to ESPN Racing-Live.com.

Toro Rosso has not followed the path of its rivals by introducing regular updates on the grounds of costs. Team Principal Franz Tost believes that the one major update makes financial sense and makes no bones about the fact that Sebastien Bourdais did not produce the performance expected.

“It was a financial decision," Tost confirmed. "Rather than incur the costs of constant updates, we chose to keep costs within budget by waiting, before delivering one major update package, which will make its race debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Secondly, apart from the limitations on car development, we also had one driver who did not live up to our expectations..."

Earl ALEXANDER
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