STR12, Mercedes similarities ‘coincidence’ - Key

Toro Rosso technical director James Key says the similarities between the new STR12 and the 2017 Mercedes are "complete coincidence" after the final launch of pre-season.

With testing set to get underway on Monday morning, Toro Rosso became the last team to unveil its 2017 car in the pit lane in Barcelona on Sunday afternoon. The new car features a suspension concept and front bodywork similar to the Mercedes W08 launched on Thursday, and asked if that is simply a coincidence Key replied: "Yes it is, because I looked at the Mercedes and thought 'Oh, OK, they've got our front suspension!'

"Most people will say we've got the Mercedes front suspension, but ... The nose is similar, the front of the side pods are similar, even the bodywork of the sidepods are similar.

"[It's a] complete coincidence ... It's clear we followed a similar path. I just hope the engines are similar!"

Asked whether seeing the Mercedes concept made him believe Toro Rosso had got its philosophy right, Key replied: "On the one hand we were pleased to see someone else has done a similar thing, on the other hand we were disappointed that we weren't the only team to think of something. But let's see. There's many different concepts out there, actually. If you look at it from an aero point of view the diversity is very obvious."

Having told RACER in January that Toro Rosso still had some aerodynamic targets to hit before the start of the season, Key says most have now been achieved.

"Yeah we had a bit more [to find]," Key told RACER in the pit lane. "Most have been, but we still have a few to get, we're still after them. Targets are dynamic things because it's all relative but we don't know where we are yet. So we'll have to see, we're hoping our targets our right but it's currently early days. We're happy so far. We've got a huge amount to learn this week at the moment, so let's see where we are."

While the new car looks impressive, there were reported reliability issues with the Renault power unit during a filming day at Fiorano last week, but Key played down their impact.

"We're not going to to comment on any technical issues in the filming day. We went there to film and take pictures and run the car and we did all three. And we were running at the end of the day, so..."