Toro Rosso STR13, 2018

Toro Rosso’s Honda-powered 2018 F1 car revealed

2018 F1 season

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Toro Rosso has revealed its new car for the 2018 F1 season. The STR13 is the team’s first car to be powered by a Honda engine.

The team released the image of the car after a spy shot of Brendon Hartley testing it at Misano surfaced on social media.

The image reveals the team has adopted the thumb tip nose used by many of its rivals. The Halo carries and aerodynamic fairing and the main air intake for the engine and other components is considerably larger than before.

The team has kept the revised livery it introduced last year.

Toro Rosso is due to formally reveal its car for the new season at the Circuit de Catalunya ahead of the start of testing next week.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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70 comments on “Toro Rosso’s Honda-powered 2018 F1 car revealed”

  1. It appears to be moving, so that has to count as a good start.

    1. Is that smoke out the back?

      1. No, it’s spray from the wet weather tyres. If you look carefully you can see the “wave” in the spray (bands of light and dark), which is caused by the air behind wheels when travelling fast, or in this case, very fast.

        1. that was ironic, you know

          1. You mean sarcastic. Irony happens when the opposite of what you wanted to happen happens when you do something that was intended to prevent it from happening.

          2. I thought the irony was blatantly obvious but he’s clearly a boffin who thinks we’re all a bit dim….or works for str and not both :-)

          3. Facetious, perhaps, but not ironic. :)

        2. I was thinking you didn’t see the sarcasm from Kringles comment, until you added your own with the last 10 charakters :p

          1. ;-) squared.

      2. @Kringle That made me laugh so hard, water came spraying out my nose ;-)

        1. Nah, it was probably smoke.

  2. I was wrong: I thought the Halo couldn’t get worse, but the aero element makes it horrible and may even defeat the Halo purpose.

    1. Out of curiosity, what’s your reasoning behind thinking that the aero element might reduce the safety of the halo?

      I totally agree otherwise – it is hideously ugly.

      1. it is a thin – probably not as strong as the halo piece – that will certainly detach with a heavy

      2. causing more debris into the cockpir

        1. That’s not really a problem though, you just got hit by a wheel. Debris is irrelevant at that point.

          1. It is a problem if the tyre/wheel find a piece of carbon/kevlar to push into the cockpit.

          2. I see your point. It could be shoved like a sword blade into the cockpit by a wheel. I would hope that it’s not made of carbon or something like that but of a softer material. The cockpit head guard is a soft foam that looks very rigid, but isn’t. Perhaps the aero element is made of something that will bend under stress rather than break. There’s no real need to make it too strong.

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      22nd February 2018, 5:49

      I cannot imagine the whole grid with halos… It’s going to look absolutely ridiculous.

      1. It’s the rolling jungle gym look. Or like transformers…not fully transformed.

        It sure adds the industrial ruggedness that F1 has been missing. Fast, light and nimble morphed into fast, heavy and silly.

        Maybe they can attract sponsors away from the TRO. Formula 1: We’re tough too!

    3. Is that the first ever DRS halo?

  3. This shot just proves my biggest fears are coming true. Ever since I started to follow F1 in late 90’s I’ve learned to distinguish drivers from their unique helmet designs. It’s the easiest way – you can see who’s the driver from first glance. Now it’s impossible for me to say is it Gasly or Hartley driving that car because Halo covers the view.

    1. Camera on top of the roll hoop will be a different colour — black or yellow.

      1. I know, it’s been like that for ages. But it’s not as effective as helmet design (at least for me) when it comes to distinguishing drivers. Easier for me to remember all unique helmet designs rather than memorize is it driver X or Y with black/yellow roll hoop.

        1. I agree with you about distinguishing one driver from another… the yellow camera mount helps too.

          Maybe they should consider letting the drivers personalize part of the halo livery… Drivers seem to like customizing their helmet designs, why not the halo too? That way it’d be unique for each driver, and add some design flair to what is undeniably a horrible aesthetic addition to the car

        2. They should use color scheme on the halo itself but not with a binary system. Mimicking the drivers helmet theme would be nice.

    2. Honestlly though @huhhii, it would be easy to see if only RB did not force it’s drivers to have all but identical helmets, allowing only a tidbit of colour somewhere on top (where now you cannot really see it, with the Halo there).

      If one had a distinctively green helmet and the other a blue red one, (for example) it would still be easily distinguishable

      1. @bascb While they tend to wear similar helmets it’s not impossible to distinguish RB drivers. Webber and Vettel were always super easy. Verstappen and Ricciardo are using fair share of bright different colors in their helmets. Sainz had a really interesting retro design last year. Hartley has more green in his helmet than Gasly. etc. It’s definitely doable if there wasn’t Halo.

        1. the only non RB colour on Verstappen’s helmet this year is the lion head drawing you can only really discern from the top view (with his new helmet) @huhhii

          1. @bascb Indeed, Verstappen went with duller matte-RB colour scheme this year. But that wouldn’t be a problem since Ricciardo has kept his colours the same. His helmet is much more brighter, hence without the halo it would be quite easy to tell is it RIC or VER.

    3. However, you could not distinguish Vettel from his helmet because he changed it too much.

      1. @vetee It never was an issue because Webber and Ricciardo didn’t constantly change their helmet design. “Does it look like Webber/Ricciardo?” If yes = one of them, if not = Vettel with his new design.

  4. I’m very pleased to see they’ve kept the same livery

    1. Agreed. STR has one of the prettiest paint schemes on the grid.

  5. a good start from both Toro Ross and Honda, because last year they weren’t able to do a shakedown due to delays and problem.

    1. The shakedown was aborted due to to McLaren not having a floor ready for the car. As per the documentary… (not absolving Honda but they werent to blame for that particular problem)

  6. That air intake above the driver’s head looks huge! Maybe it’s the lighting, but it looks 2-3 times bigger than the ones we’ve seen so far. Taking it safe with Honda maybe?

    1. toro rosso and mercedes also had this design last year so it is just their philosophy

      1. @afonic yes that looks gigantic! Maybe all Honda needed was more cooling.

  7. My goodness, that HALO is hideous. The air intake looks like it came off the belly of an F-16, I wonder if that can possibly be the final design…

  8. Peeking out from behind that hideous cage. That’s heroic!

  9. I wonder if that’s powered by the 2017 engine.

  10. I think this article needs an closing tag.
    Can’t wait to hit “post comment” to see if I’m right.

      1. Next try: italics. And now?

          1. could it be…?

          2. Nope. No joy

  11. Already widely rumored to be the fastest on the grid in the corners.

  12. Is someone driving that thing? can’t tell.
    Good luck to Martin Brundell and David Croft trying to distinguish which driver they’re commenting on.
    I know the roll hoop camera is coloured but tell me who looks at that and can remember who’s who?

    1. The roll hoop camera is usually visible from more angles than the helmet. Although if the sun is at the wrong angle it can be hard to tell if the camera is yellow or just reflecting sun off the gloss black. It was much easier to differentiate a few years back when they were either bright red/orange or bright yellow/green.

  13. Just memorize the drivers with the yellow camera.
    If it is not yellow it is the other guy…
    You are welcome.

    1. Or check which one has not retired yet :p

  14. I’m surprised they made the shakedown. That’s a huge feat for both Toro Rosso and Honda. If the engine didn’t break down during the day… then it’s as good as winning a championship for Honda.

  15. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    22nd February 2018, 5:46

    That’s a lot of smoke coming out the back!

    1. @freelittlebirds you do realise it was wet, right? That’s a spray of water that’s been thrown up

      1. Sure? Think its just oil from a previous run…

      2. @bosyber

        >> The joke >>
        Your head.

        1. Nope, more like waaay below the other way @flatsix, I assumed it was likely a sadly bad joke, but nowadays one never really knows.

        2. @flatsix
          That was really funny :-)

          @bosyber
          Obviously, I was just kidding.

  16. The front-end looks similar to last season’s Mclaren, and that’s also the only difference apart from the Halo that I can notice compared to STR12.

  17. It’s impossible for a Formula 1 car to run unnoticed in SantMonica !

    1. @tifoso1989 This shakedown took place in Misano, Italy, though, not in Santa Monica, LOL.

      1. @jerejj
        The shakedown took place in Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. The circuit is located in Santa Monica Misano Adriatico. The circuit used to be named Circuito Internazionale Santa Monica till 2006 then from 2006 to 2012 it was called Misano World Circuit then it was named after the late Marco Simoncelli.

      2. @jerejj I LOL at your LOL!!! Misano used to be called Circuito Internazionale Santa Monica!!

  18. I would laugh if this years Honda engine was the pick of the bunch and put Toro Rosso on pole in Australia!!

  19. Super ugly Str but I hope a more competitive STR.

  20. RIP meme team McLaren (2015-2017). HELLO TORRO ROSSO MEME TEAM!!!

Comments are closed.