©XPB Images, Wri2, & Toro Rosso
‘LOOK TO THE WINDWARD’
In order to maximise Toro Rosso’s chances to get the 2017 overhaul right, Key and his colleagues started working on the project from September 2015, given the scope of the changes. The team’s limited resources also dictated the early start as it does not have the same firepower, nor the same production speed as the biggest squads, though there have been noticeable improvements in Faenza.
What’s more, F1 has continued to become an increasingly technological sport over the past decade. Like a sea captain watching the landscape change during his voyage, Key has been a close observer of F1 mutations.
“A lot has happened in those ten years. Teams got bigger. You’ve got big corporate sort of entities coming and going and all sorts of things in that time, and regulation changes… The face of the sport has changed. The speed of which the technology is evolving – not just in the car but surrounding the car – is exponential.
“Every year it gets more and more detailed, simulation, the amount of detail you go into things. So it is all based on very similar principles and you are still trying to achieve the same thing but that side has dramatically increased.
“Let’s take the situation now: Mercedes has done a fantastic job, they have really dominated the sport for the last [three years]. They have the budget, the resources and the facilities to really push the boundaries of these regulations both on the power unit and on the chassis as well.
“So, if you are a middle size team like Toro Rosso for example, you still have to do a lot of that just to give yourself a fighting chance. The level increases dramatically, and if you are a big team you need to invest to get up to that level, if you are a middle team you have to invest just to stay in touch.
“You have to make more smart choices and priorities. That’s the area that has really ramped up for me compared to ten years ago. But what you are trying to achieve and what makes a team works is still very similar to ten years ago. It is just a bigger picture with larger budgets, much more complicated regulations, much more complicated cars and a lot more technology.”
