Toro Rosso reveals Honda power unit firing up

Toro Rosso has released a teaser video showing its new power unit partner Honda starting up its new engine for the first time with the STR13 in preparation for the 2018 Formula 1 season.

The video comes less than a week after the official release of the McLaren Amazon documentary in which the McLaren-Honda 2017 engine start up is shown to be fraught with technical issues before eventually being fired up manually.

While Honda’s reliability and design issues signalled the beginning of the end of its McLaren partnership, the Japanese manufacturer is eager for a fresh start in F1 with Toro Rosso.

The Italian squad has released a short video on Twitter teasing the first engine start-up of Honda’s new RA618H in the STR13 chassis. Despite the video using an image of the 2017-specification Honda power unit RA617H and the audio being slightly distorted, Honda engineers are shown working alongside Toro Rosso mechanics on the team’s new car and engine.

Toro Rosso is reportedly set for a shakedown test at Misano the week before the opening pre-season F1 test at Circuit de Catalunya, while the new-look squad will be officially revealed on the morning of the first day of testing in the pitlane on February 26.

What a fantastic Valentine's Day, the STR13 and the Honda RA618H finally meet pic.twitter.com/vEY14v28Aw

— Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) February 14, 2018

Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly has underlined his demand for reliable and relatively trouble-free running at the two pre-season tests in Spain in order to give the Italian squad a useful bank of data and information to ramp up the development of its 2018 car. The Toro Rosso video teaser also shows Gasly and teammate Brendon Hartley undergoing their race seat fitting at the head's factory in Faenza.

Currently, Toro Rosso is set to be the last team to reveal its 2018 F1 car, the STR13, while Haas took the honour of becoming the first team to release images of its new VF-18 car on Wednesday.