Toro Rosso unveiled a brand new nose on its STR9 on the third day of testing in Bahrain as it strives to find additional performance in that area.
With the new regulations being so dramatically different to last years, the development around the front of the car is somewhat of an unknown for the teams and therefore it’s likely we’ll see changes in this area throughout the year.
Toro Rosso’s first iteration (below) followed the ‘ant-eater’ style of design which is aimed at getting as much airflow underneath the nose as possible. The second iteration (above) follows the same design philosophy, but is slightly higher at the edges to create larger openings either side of the crash-structure.
The new nose would have required the team to submit it for frontal-crash tests and has therefore likely been in development for some time.
Mercedes also hoped to introduce a new nose design in Bahrain, but it failed the FIA’s crash test. It’s expected to undergo another test in early-March following a re-design and the team hopes to run it at the first race in Australia.
