Toro Rosso F1 took lessons to aid communication with Honda

Scuderia Toro Rosso chief Franz Tost has revealed the team took lessons over the winter to aid communication with new Formula 1 engine partner Honda.

Toro Rosso linked up with Honda for the 2018 season after the Japanese manufacturer split with McLaren following three turbulent seasons working together.

The new Toro Rosso-Honda STR13 made a solid start to testing, completing the second-highest number of laps for any car in the morning session in Barcelona on Monday.

Tost spoke warmly of the early stages of the new partnership between Toro Rosso and Honda before revealing the team had also taken lessons to make communication easier.

“I must say we have a really fantastic working relationship with Honda. We had very busy months, as you can imagine, in November, December, January and now February, and there were absolutely no problems,” Tost said.

“From the communications side, we at Toro Rosso started to prepare ourselves for this cooperation. We had a couple of lessons in Faenza on how to communicate with Japanese companies and with Honda.

“I think this was very useful also to get an idea of the way they think, because it’s a completely different culture.

“These seminars got very positive results and we have a really good relationship with Honda.”

Toro Rosso is the sole partner for Honda through the 2018 season, with Tost believing it to offer a big boost as the team enjoys effective works status.

“It was a completely new start for Toro Rosso,” Tost said.

“As you can imagine, we’re kind of a works team, we are the only team that is working with Honda and this opened a lot of possibilities, especially on the technical side with the engine installation and so on.

“For Toro Rosso, it’s a big advantage to work together with such a big company as Honda is.”