Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Toro Rosso should target wins 'in the near future'

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost wants the team to be fighting for podiums and victories “in the near future”.

Last season Toro Rosso finished seventh in the constructors’ championship with 30 points, leaving it 125 points adrift of sixth-placed Force India. This year the team again currently sits seventh, but has already exceeded last season’s points tally and is just 15 behind Lotus in fifth place.

During an exclusive interview with F1i about Toro Rosso’s ten years in F1 so far, when asked about the team’s goals for the coming ten years, Tost replied: “It should be in the near future that Toro Rosso will become a team to fight for podiums and for victories.”

However, Tost targets a top five constructors’ championship finish as the immediate goal for next season, saying this year may have come a bit too soon to achieve such a result.

“Our infrastructure from the building is finished. We now have a proper Formula One building where everything is close together, which was not the case until now. We started to move everything during the August shutdown and from September onwards we have everything under one roof. This is a big advantage because engineers, designers, all the people are sitting closer together and they do not have long ways of communication.

“Also from the manpower we have reached quite a good level. Nevertheless we are hopefully bringing in a few good, experienced people, which you always need. Then Toro Rosso must be in a position to be in the first five and this is the target from 2016 onwards.”

Franz Tost exclusive interview: Ten years at Toro Rosso

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.