Pierre Gasly says Toro Rosso’s lack of updates – and their struggle to understand the parts that have arrived – means the team’s car has effectively not changed through 2018.
Toro Rosso has had a mixed campaign, with some standout results contrasted with events where the team has failed to trouble the points.
Gasly claimed fourth in Bahrain, sixth in Hungary and seventh in Monaco, but has scored points elsewhere only once, with team-mate Brendon Hartley taking just two points.
“We haven’t really had any updates on the car since Melbourne,” he said.
“Or the really small one we had in Monaco and the one in Austria didn’t work.
“So we have the same car that started the season really.
“So clearly we start to feel it because recently we’ve been struggling to get close to the top 10 because other teams are improving and we are not.
“For sure in a way, you could say that it’s clearly missing and if you lose a technical director [following James Key’s exit] it always has an impact on the instant performance. It’s not an ideal situation."
While ruing Toro Rosso’s chassis setbacks, Gasly is nonetheless optimistic that the use of Honda’s Spec 3 engine will aid its prospects through the last four Grands Prix of 2018.
“We know that in the midfield that if we want to score points you need to make everything right, both qualifying and the race,” he said.
“Usually when had a good qualifying so far we always managed to have a good race, good strategy. Monaco, Budapest, Bahrain or even Spa.
“In Japan, we had a really good qualifying but we didn’t really maximise the race. So if we manage to keep the pace we have and keep the package…
“We know that if we introduce more engines as well we’re going to have penalties, so at the moment it’s quite a lot of question marks over the next couple of races.
“But for sure with the new spec, we have better chances to fight higher up in the rankings.”
