Red Bull and Toro Rosso have revealed their plans to launch their respective 2019 cars ahead of pre-season testing.
This year marks an important step for both teams owned by the Austrian energy drinks giant as the senior outfit joins their sister squad in using Honda engines, having been impressed by the progress made during the first half of last season.
As a result, the two teams will also work more closely, with the entire rear end of the new Red Bull RB15 to also feature on the Toro Rosso STR14.
And now we know at least when we’ll see the latter of those cars, with Toro Rosso announcing the earliest launch date so far of February 11th on YouTube.
It is possible though we could see the RB15 even sooner with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko revealing a shakedown of that car will be done before the first pre-season test in Barcelona, which begins on February 18th.
“It’s always close, but we’ve now taught (chief designer Adrian) Newey that the first official test day is not a roll-out for functional testing,” he told Motorsport-Magazin.com.
The Austrian didn’t mention a date but did suggest that the roll-out will also feature a special livery, as we have seen in recent years with the Camo and DisruptoBull, with the aim of hiding some of the finer details of the new design.
2019 F1 launch dates:
Mercedes: TBC
Ferrari: February 15
Red Bull: TBC
Renault: February 12
Haas: TBC
McLaren: February 14
Racing Point: February 13
Sauber: February 18
Toro Rosso: February 11
Williams: TBC