Tost: Toro Rosso to out-perform McLaren in 2018

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Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost believes that Toro Rosso will be more competitive than McLaren this season.

The two teams effectively swapped engine providers over the season. McLaren is now with Renault after breaking up with Honda following a disastrous three-year partnership.

The Japanese manufacturer has moved in the other direction, and this year Toro Rosso will be the Honda 'works team'. Depending on how it works out, Red Bull might move in the same direction for 2019.

Many thought that Toro Rosso was getting the raw end of the deal. But Tost firmly believes that his team's new deal with Honda will advance them up the grid.

"We are happy with the Honda engine which is doing a fantastic job," he told Sky Sports during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Toro Rosso faces setback but Honda isn't to blame

"I am convinced they will supply us with a very competitive package.

"I am sure that during the season we will catch up and by the end of the season we will have a very competitive car.

"Our target is to be in the front part of the midfield," he predicted.

Meanwhile McLaren is having a bumpy ride as it switches to Renault engines. A number of reliability glitches during testing have raised concerns about the design of the MCL33.

Tost wasn't about to take advantage of a rival's misfortunes. But he did make it clear that he felt McLaren had made a mistake in dumping Honda in favour of the 'safe' Renault power unit.

"I don't care about McLaren," he said. "I am convinced that by the end we will have a more competitive package than them."

But Toro Rosso's Twitter feed wasn't shy of having a sly dig at McLaren's test glitches. With their rivals stuck in the garage, the team posted a picture of the STR13 heading out on track with the caption: "All systems Woking, let’s do this."

Woking. Geddit? Of course we do!

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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.