Scuderia Toro Rosso‘s pre-season got off to the worst possible start, as engine problems put a stop to their filming day at Misano on Wednesday.
Having switched to Renault engines this year, from one-year old Scuderia Ferrari engines last season that they were unable to update, the Faenza based squad were hoping to experience superior performance from the French manufacturers power unit, but already they have come up against issues.
The squad did manage to complete 100km on track in their 2017 challenger, the STR12, before what was believed to be an energy recovery system issue brought proceedings to an early conclusion.
https://twitter.com/ToroRossoSpy/status/834814399906996227
Renault have launched an immediate investigation into the failure and are ploughing through data to find out what could have brought on the problem, with hope of resolution prior to the first week of pre-season testing in Barcelona next Monday, as they will not want a repeat of the issues Red Bull Racing suffered during winter testing in 2014, when barely any track time was possible.
Early rumours regarding the performance of the Renault engine this year were positive, and Engine Chief Remi Taffin believes they have found 0.3 seconds per lap in gains, however if the teams are going to be plagued by unreliability issues throughout the season, they may not get to experience the benefits of such improvements.
Toro Rosso are set to unveil the STR12 on the eve of the first day of testing, which gets underway at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona, on February 27.
Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat have both been retained this season, in what is now an experienced and potentially strong line-up.
