Toro Rosso is prepared to give up their 2019 Formula 1 season to help Red Bull and Honda make as much competitive progress as possible.
Last year, the Faenza-based outfit did effectively the same thing following the senior team’s decision to drop Renault for the Japanese manufacturer this year, taking engine penalties to develop both performance and reliability.
The potential of the Spec-3 ‘Suzuka special’ in the final races has raised expectations of a title challenge at Red Bull this season and Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost wouldn’t mind if that came at his team’s expense.
“If that helps the strategy for Red Bull to win races and the world championship, of course,” he told Motorsport.com.
“We do not even need to discuss this, it’s within our philosophy. I’m more than happy with it because in parallel we also improve the performance.”
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Toro Rosso is also in a much better position to play a key role this year because of a greater collaboration between the two Red Bull-backed outfits.
“There’s no doubt that we will profit from the synergies and the co-operation with Red Bull Technologies,” added Tost.
“It’s the whole rear end. We have to develop within the rules all the list of parts, and this, of course, we will do because we stick to the rules.
“All the teams at this stage of the year hope that the new car works better and is an improvement.
“This is the same for us, but I always say that I want to see the performance on the race track, which means the lap time. This is decisive.”
