TORO ROSSO
Similar to Force India, the start of the season is going to prove crucial to Toro Rosso’s potential end result this year. Last year’s STR10 was an impressive car aerodynamically and the trend has continued in to 2016. Watching the car trackside in Barcelona it is strong through high-speed corners and - unlike last year’s car - appears to be reliable.
The Ferrari power unit may be a year old but Toro Rosso is running the most recent specification of engine and that provides a clear step forward compared to last year’s offering from Renault. However, using an old power unit also means there will be no development and the team could find itself slowly slipping backwards in the pecking order.
In Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso has an exciting partnership which has shown it will deliver results given a reliable car. The pair are remarkably mature for their respective ages, and they will need to call on the experience gained last year to hit the ground running this campaign. Expect some spectacular performances early on, but don’t be surprised if they fade later in the year.
Silbermann's view
There can be no more eloquent condemnation of the 2015 Renault Power Unit than Scuderia Toro Rosso’s performance in winter testing. The Red Bull junior squad had the second strongest Barcelona after Mercedes in terms of laps completed and they were pretty quick too: all that with a Ferrari power unit slotted in far too late for everything to be designed perfectly around it. I expect the second Italian team to do well this year, especially if it grabs its opportunities early on. Last year, all the talk was about Max Verstappen, who can only get better, but Carlos Sainz’s 2015 performance was partly masked by technical woes so this could be one of the most interesting in-team rivalries of the season.
