Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost has revealed the remarkable cost his team spent simply fixing crash damage during the 2018 Formula 1 season.
His two drivers were involved in some of the scariest incidents from last year with Brendon Hartley suffering three high-speed incidents by himself in Spain and Britain and with Lance Stroll at the start in Canada.
Teammate Pierre Gasly wasn’t immune either, including two first-lap collisions in Barcelona and Paul Ricard.
“This year we spent €2.3million only for crashes,” Tost told Motorsport.com.
With only Gasly optimising the performance of the Honda-powered STR13 at most races, results were more spread out as the junior Red Bull team also gave up much of their year to push the engine development.
“We had highlights this season and some races which were really not good,” Tost continued.
“The highlights were quite clear. When Gasly finished fourth in Bahrain, which was a strong race, and he did a very good race also in Monaco [finishing seventh], Budapest he finished sixth.
“Spa was a good race because we didn’t expect to finish in the points there but we finished ninth, and in Mexico, where he finished 10th.”
Those performances earned the Frenchman a seat at Red Bull for 2019, replacing Daniel Ricciardo, while Toro Rosso will start the year with an all-new line-up of Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon.