Toro Rosso has become the first team to confirm their 2019 car, the STR14, has passed the obligatory FIA crash tests.
Following a change to the regulations several years ago, all cars must now be declared safe by the governing body before they can roll out on track in pre-season testing.
That means teams face an even tighter schedule to ensure their designs are ready, however, the junior Red Bull team has met the criteria with just over a month to go until the first four-day event in Barcelona.
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Toro Rosso heads into the upcoming year with an all-new line-up of the returning Daniil Kvyat and British-Thai racer Alexander Albon stepping up from Formula 2.
Last season, the team finished ninth in the Constructors’ Championship but with a closer relationship to their sister team and a much-improved Honda engine compared to the start of 2018, expectations are higher.
“I expect even more support,” team boss Franz Tost told RACER. “Support not directly now from Honda, from Honda we will get the same, but because of the synergies with Red Bull Racing.
“I expect that we will improve the performance because it’s always better if there are two teams out on the track instead of only one to be able to deliver feedback from the technical side.
“And Red Bull Racing is a top team and that means the feedback will be much more in detail in 2019, and this will help us to improve the performance too because we will also get this information.”