Some people are fans of Scuderia Toro Rosso. But many more people are NOT fans of the Scuderia Toro Rosso. This 2019 Oppositelock team preview is for those in the latter group. This is also a poor knockoff of Drew Magary’s infamous and inflammatory yearly NFL previews. Read all the previews so far here.
Your Team: Scuderia Toro Rosso
Your 2018 results: 33 Points. 9th in the constructors’ championship which is about exactly what you expect from the Italian Red Bull junior squad. Their best result of 4th came in an absolutely bizarre Bahrain Grand Prix. Aside from being Red Bull’s test-bed for 2019, they were also the de facto Honda factory team. Yes folks we had an Italian team, sponsored by an Austrian company running a Japanese engine, somehow both cars retired in Russia…
Your Car: STR14
Once again we have a Honda powertrain in a midfield chassis, but they will always be out there testing and putting in laps being the little team that, uh, exists.
Your Team Principal: Franz Tost, who takes his orders from Dark Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz. Franz Tost may or may not have put Scott Speed in his place after the Nurburgring Grand Prix. He’s also been rustling the Red Calf team since 1999.
Your Drivers: Alexander Albon and Daniil Kvyat.
Daniil “The Torpedo” Kvyat, the Russian driver who’s been here before, twice. This poor bastard is on his last legs in F1 as driver. His first time at STR, he was coming off winning the 2013 GP3 title, and after 1 year he was promoted up to the senior Red Bull team after GLORY BOY Sebastian Vettel left for Ferrari. This will be very important soon. Kvyat’s 1st year with Red Bull he managed a 2nd place finish and finished 7th in the drivers’ championship. His second year started off with a DNS, a 7th, a 3rd and then a wreck in Russia with, guess who, SEBASTIAN VETTEL.
Vettel bitched and his former team listed and promptly demoted Daniil back to STR, where he finished the season in 14th WAMP WAAAAAAMP. He was invited back for 2017 but lost his seat after Singapore. He spent last year as a Ferrari sim racer, (read bitch boy with sponsorship money). He’s now back at Toro Rosso because Red Bull ran out of younglings with super licenses. I wouldn’t really expect him to survive the year.
Alex Albon hasn’t won a championship since karting. He had a Formula E contract that he immediately ripped up after getting an F1 ride. There are a lot of former F1 drivers with more experience who didn’t as they wanted to drive for championship. I don’t blame the 22 year old for jumping in, who knows, he might be good or he might suck. Speaking of which...
What’s new that sucks: Honda has revised their engine and were targeting last year’s Renault power unit’s performance. Read that again, LAST YEAR’S RENAULT. Yeah good luck with that boys and girls. With Red Bull taking on the Honda engine, STR is back to playing second fiddle/development roles. But it’s all good because the new aero regs are also ruining the speed of the cars, just what Honda needed.
What’s always sucked: Scuderia Toro Rosso started life way back as Minardi, the plucky team that everyone liked but FUCKING SUCKED. Minardi never won a single thing. They never even had a podium. But fortunately for them Red Bull bought the team to turn it into the F1.5 that it was always destined to be. There only ever win came from a wet and wild Monza 2008 when a young Sebastian Vettel won his first race. Yes, you can blame these ass clowns in Faenza, Italy for bringing about Vettel. Fuck you forever for that, STR.
They also fired the following drivers who actually won titles in other series:
- Scott Speed -Rallycross
- Sébastien Bourdais -Champcar
- Sébastien Buemi- WEC, Formula E
- Jean-Éric Vergne- Formula E
- Brendon Hartley- WEC
What might not suck: There’s not much hope here beyond a possible podium if the front ¾ of the drivers crash out. The good shit will go to Red Bull immediately after that.
Next up: Alfa Romeo Racing