Thursday 30th June 2011
Toro Rosso's technical director Giorgio Ascanelli has revealed that the team will soon turn their attention to next year's car.
Toro Rosso are currently seventh in the Constructors' Championship, having edged ahead of Force India by four points thanks to Jaime Alguersuari's P8 finish at the previous race in Valencia.
And although the team is keen to retain that position - and will introduce updates for their STR6 at the British and Italian races, Ascanelli says the time is coming when their 2012 car will be their main objective.
"We are approaching that time of year when we must start looking to the new car for 2012," he told the team's website.
"However, there are further developments in the pipeline for STR6: there will be some very small things at Silverstone and some of the following races.
"Apart from that, the Italian Grand Prix will see changes to the car simply because Monza is such a unique circuit that we need to dedicate some attention to it.
"After that, our focus really has to shift to STR7 or we will not have a car for next year.
"Currently, we are slightly ahead of our target in terms of our position in the classification. Whether we stay there depends on how well we work and it also depends a bit on luck and how our closest rivals perform and how much of their resources they can continue to devote to their 2011 cars."
As for this year's Championship, the technical director says he's "happy" with the team's position in the standings, although concedes it "owes something" to their main rivals faltering.
"I believe that, in terms of all aspects of what makes up a Formula 1 team, we are at a level that you would expect from the ninth team.
"However, our avowed target for 2011 is to finish eighth and currently, we are seventh in the Constructors' classification. So we have to be happy with that, even if it is going to be difficult to maintain it for the rest of the season.
"The fact we are seventh does not mean we are performing better than our planned 'road map' because although we have got plenty of things right, our position also owes something to other teams sometimes getting it wrong."
Credit: PLANETF1.com (www.planetf1.com)
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