Toro Rosso set to re-badge Renault power units

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Toro Rosso is set to follow Red Bull in re-badging its Renault power units in 2017 as part of a sponsorship agreement.

Red Bull's relationship with Renault almost broke down completely after a winless 2015, but eventually the pair reached an agreement which saw Red Bull running the French power unit under the Tag Heuer name. This year saw Toro Rosso using year-old Ferrari power units but it will return to Renault next season as part of a new deal, and team principal Franz Tost has confirmed the junior team is set to follow suit.

"We have the possibility to find a title sponsor to rebrand our 2017 engine, as Red Bull did last year," Tost is quoted as saying by La Gazzetta dello Sport. "We're in talks with a sponsor."

Such a move was hinted at following the release of the official 2017 entry list from the FIA, with Red Bull's engine supplier named as Tag Heuer and Toro Rosso the only team to show 'TBC' when it came to power units.

Like Ferrari, Tost says Toro Rosso will also run its 2017 car before the official start of pre-season testing, with a filming day planned.

"We're respecting the road map. We did crash tests and we'll do a filming day with the new car before the start of the winter test at Barcelona."

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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.