Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has set the target of securing fifth place in the constructors’ championship in 2015.
Last season saw Toro Rosso finish seventh in the standings with a total of 30 points, leaving it 125 points adrift of sixth-placed Force India. However, despite an all-rookie line-up of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr this year, Tost says he wants the team to break in to the top five with the STR10.
“The target is quite clear,” Tost said. “We have to finish in fifth place in the constructors’ championship. That means that the drivers must be permanently in the points.”
Despite requiring such a step in performance compared to last season, Tost said he feels the ingredients are in place to challenge the bigger teams.
“The team is getting better and better. We are building up quite a good infrastructure in Faenza. It’s a little bit historic related because when the FIA changed the regulation and we had to design and build the car by ourselves we had to build up the infrastructure. This took a couple of years, we will be finished with the building at the end of this year.
“But the building is one side, the other side is the team. Over the last two or three years we have built up quite a strong technical team under the lead of James. Especially from last year to this year we made quite a big jump forward. With the package that we’ve got together now from the car side, from the driver side, from the financial side, we simply must be in a position to fight for fifth place in the constructors’ championship.”
Click here for the full gallery of the first photos of the STR10
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