Toro Rosso’s technical director James Key admitted that they considered and even investigated the option of a twin-nose design similar to that of Lotus.
The E22, revealed online, has two noses of different length in order to satisfy the regulations. Whilst it’s the FIA’s crash tests, it isn’t clear whether it’s actually ‘in the spirt of the rules’, according to Key.
“The Lotus nose needs some clarification, but it’s a very clever idea,” he told the gathered media including The F1 Times during the STR9’s launch on Monday. “The question is really whether it is in the spirit [of the regulations], but we’ll see.”
He stressed that he doesn’t believe it to be illegal and that Toro Rosso even considered a similar nose before deciding on the ‘standard’ thin-single nose.
“I don’t think it’s illegal, it’s whether it’s in the spirit of the regulations,” he said. “We looked at it early on when the car was quite a bit less mature than now and in theory it was working well, but in reality we felt it had too many drawbacks. We didn’t pursue that, but we kind of understand where they’ve gone with that. It could be worth a revisit when things have calmed down a bit.
“Our interpretation of a similar idea had a slightly different frontal nose, to the point we were happy that it would be accepted within the spirit of the regs. I’m not saying the Lotus isn’t, it’s a very clever interpretation, but it’s also the most extreme out there.”
