Sidepodcast

Scuderia Toro Rosso Reveal STR5

The Toro Rosso team unveiled their 2010 challenger - the STR5 - at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia on Monday. The car features an almost identical livery to previous years, while the chassis takes its design cue from last year's car, including an extended engine cover and bevelled nose.

The rollout of this new chassis is an important achievement for the team, who this year have been required to bring the design department entirely in-house. The Italian outfit had until this season been riding on the coat tails of sister team Red Bull Racing.

Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The STR5 livery features stronger branding around the cockpit area, hopefully making it easier to distinguish from the Red Bull.

Chassis STR5-02 was presented at 09:05 GMT in Spain, where in front of the assembled media, drivers Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari pulled the covers back on the new car.

Shortly after the unveiling, Buemi took to the track, but completed just 10 laps before suffering a gearbox problem. By the end of the day the team had managed a total of 18 laps, however the team's technical director, Giorgio Ascanelli is more than aware they could be in for a tough time this year.

"Before even thinking about producing a car, we had to acquire the right tools to carry out these tasks and also hire the people who are to use these structures. Finding fifty people and putting them in an environment where they can do their job has been a tough task."

Team Principal, Franz Tost offered a more optimistic view stating that STR "Must aim to finish in the top eight in the Constructors’ Championship".

Credit: Ker Robertson/Getty Images

Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari display their 2010 helmet designs for the assembled photographers.

Chief Designer, Ben Butler was keen to point out that the car's heritage is closely tied to the package they ended their 2009 campaign with:

"The STR5 is definitely a case of evolution rather than revolution. We have taken a fantastic 2009 package as our starting point and we did not want to do too much with it, apart from changing and adapting it to take into consideration the regulation changes.

"It is easy to say there is little change between the 2009 and 2010 cars, but there have been a lot of significant evolutions that we have had to put in place, primarily to ensure reliability, and which will hopefully prove to be competitive once the racing starts."

Buemi will get two days in the car before Alguersuari takes over on Wednesday.

Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The highly sculpted nose of the STR5.

Toro Rosso Confirm Alguersuari for 2010

Credit: Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images

Jamie Alguersuari, who made his F1 debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009, will start his first full season in March.

Scuderia Toro Rosso announced on Friday that the services of Jaime Alguersuari will be retained for the 2010 F1 season. The signing reduces the number of remaining seats on the grid to just four.

The confirmation came via the team's official website, ending months of speculation about this year's line-up.

Speaking of the signing, Team Principal Franz Tost emphasised the importance of the Red Bull Young Driver Programme on Jaime's career:

"Considering that he made his debut only halfway through 2009, at the Hungarian Grand Prix, with no prior testing, he did a good job, making steady progress throughout the second half of the year, with a mature approach considering he is still only 19 years old.

"This season, he will again face a steep learning curve, as all the circuits in the first part of the season will be new to him. Jaime's appointment also confirms our commitment to bringing on graduates of the Red Bull Junior Team young driver programme."

There was no word from the Alguersuari himself, but he starts the 2010 season as he finished 2009, again partnering Sébastien Buemi for the Italian team.

Daily: 10th November 2009

Monday flew for me, so we are on to Tuesday already. Over the weekend, I said that the site hadn't gone down since the redesign, and yesterday it fell over twice. So, what can I jinx today? Anyway, here are some of the things we're talking about:

• Rosberg has said that the year he's just experienced has upped his value as an F1 driver, and allowed him to move away from Williams and presumably on to a team that can fight for championships. Did I miss the bit where he did anything supremely exciting?
• Meanwhile, Toro Rosso are also pretty hopeful for 2010, with Franz Tost believing their driver lineup will be strong by about mid-season, plus the fact that they're going to be building their own car as well. There's no more involvement from Red Bull, so will this help or hinder STR next year?
• Whilst we're talking about teams getting stronger next year, Brawn think they may be able to be even better in 2010 than they were this year. Ross Brawn says that they'll have had a year's experience, particularly with the Mercedes engine, and hopefully everything should just fit better.

That'll do it for now. We wrote about Must Comment Monday yesterday, but as it's Tuesday today, it's a bit late to remind you about it. Be prepared for next week though. I'll see you in the comments.