15/07/2010
NEWS STORY
Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has confirmed that his team will retain Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for next season.
"I believe our drivers will be well prepared for 2011, which is why they are both confirmed for next year," he said. "It is also logical, because one key role of Toro Rosso is to bring on young drivers from the Red Bull Young Driver programme and at the ages of 21 and 20 respectively, both Seb and Jaime certainly still meet the right criteria.
"Our drivers still lack F1 experience compared to the majority of their colleagues," he admitted. "Therefore, as they get more track time with every race, I expect to see an improvement in the final half of the season. This is particularly relevant to Alguersuari, because from Hungary onwards, he will be able to rely on the knowledge he picked up after making his debut there in 2009, knowing all the remaining tracks, with the exception of Korea.
"It is not just a case of their driving getting better, because it is also true that their understanding and engineering feedback improves, which is vital if we are to get the most out of our package."
Traditionally, his team has had a late surge producing some good results in the final part of the season. Asked if he expected this to happen again this year, " he replied: "I hope so! I expect a combination of car updates and improved performance from the drivers and indeed the whole team to bring us more points in what remains of the season.
"Why could we not do this earlier?" he continued, "it's quite simply a matter of resources, in that we are a small team and even in this high-tech age, without the people to generate and drive the technology forward, not just in terms of production but also design and development, you cannot improve. We have not fixed a cut-off date when development of the STR5 will stop and, while working on the STR6, if we come up with some solutions that we feel could benefit this year's car and we have the resources and capacity to produce new parts, then we will introduce them on STR5. It would also mean we are effectively testing for 2011 this season."