Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda’s deputy technical director Jody Egginton says the new 2019 car is responding well in the wind tunnel ahead of the new season.
The team launched their 2019 car on Monday as they hope to improve on their ninth placed finish in the constructors championship last year.
2019 has seen a few changes to the regulations and has presented challenges to the team.
“One of the intended purposes of the 2019 regulation changes was to reduce the amount of outwash generated, which leaves us with the challenge of reconstructing the required flow structures to recover the lost load within the scope of the new regulations.
“Although the front wing width has been increased, we’ve lost the winglets and the elements which were on the outboard portion of the main plane and the endplate itself is simplified.”
The team has changed some of the ways they developed the STR14 as Egginton explained.
“A number of changes have been put in place regarding how we develop the 2019 car, including the approach to how we develop the car aerodynamically.
“This was a topic which had been under review for a while and whilst there is never an ideal time for such a change, based on what we had learned in 2018 it was decided that now was the time to introduce these changes.
“Although the timescale for some of these changes was tight, and in the short term these changes have generated some extra work, the development rate of the 2019 car is now strong and responding well to the aero developments being evaluated in CFD and the wind tunnel.”
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2019 is the second season that Toro Rosso will be powered by Honda and Egginton believes Aston Martin Red Bull Racing also being powered by Honda will only help.
“We were very impressed at the development rate from Honda during the second half of last season.
“Now that Red Bull Racing will be using Honda power in 2019, they will be able to take ownership of a lot of the dyno activity and play an important role in the development of the PU.
“Following some good steps made during 2018, we expect continued strong development of the power unit in 2019 and with two teams now using this PU, the potential for this has increased.
“The key benefit in having two teams using this PU is that it provides Honda with a lot more data and feedback which will speed up the development, optimisation, and fault resolution process.”
