Toro Rosso Technical Director James Key says that a "super smooth" first week with Honda is not a surprise, after the operation enjoyed a productive week of testing in Barcelona.
Honda endured fraught pre-season testing programmes with McLaren, particularly in 2015 and 2017, having introduced new power unit concepts in both seasons.
At the respective opening four-day tests in 2015, 2016 and 2017, McLaren-Honda managed 79, 257 and 208 laps respectively at Jerez (2015) and Barcelona (2016/17).
Toro Rosso, meanwhile, amassed 324 laps across the four-day period, despite the bulk of this week’s test having been compromised by unseasonably cold weather, with Wednesday’s running all but abandoned.
Key, though, downplayed suggestions that Toro Rosso’s mileage came as a surprise.
“I think if we looked at the situation last year it’s a bit of a surprise, but having worked with them [Honda] for a while now it’s less of a surprise," Key said.
“I think looking at the facilities that they’ve got and the desperate will that they’ve got to make it work, it’s less of a surprise to me now.
“But obviously you never know until you hit the track and I have to say – touchwood – there hasn’t been any major issues at all.
“Any minor stoppages we’ve had have been on our side.
“They’ve just been super smooth to work with, we’re very inclusive so they attend all our meetings and all that sort of thing so we all know what’s going on, and we’re working together with them on optimising everything.
“So it’s been very, very smooth so far and I’m sure that will continue.”
However, Key was nonetheless frustrated by the relative lack of useful running due to the poor conditions across much of the test.
“There’s a lot we haven’t been able to do obviously,” he said.
“One of the first things you want to do is tyres, which is very difficult in these conditions so we’ve had to adapt the programme a bit.
“I think we’ve been able to do some set-up work, with the length of time it’s taken to get the tyres in we’ve done a bit of durability in a sense as well because some of the runs have been quite long.
“I can’t really make an assessment on things like cooling systems in these conditions so still a lot work to do but some of the basics have been covered and we’ve done some initial things.”
Discussion about this post