Toro Rosso always knew Honda were in a "better position" for 2018

Toro Rosso team principle says he wasn’t surprised at how well the team performed during testing and claims he knew Honda were in a “better position”.

The performance from the Honda engine surprised many as it drove around the Circuit de Catalunya last week experiencing hardly any issues throughout.

Franz Tost dampened these surprised feelings and said: “I’m not so surprised because I was convinced that Honda is in a much better position as it was mentioned last year.

“Honda worked during the winter months on the performances as well as the reliability side. So far they have done a very successful job and are quite satisfied about that co-operation.”

Tost went on to explain how good the relationship is between themselves as a design team and Honda suggesting that they compliment each other well.

“The engine is being designed to fit the best possible way into the chassis. That means Toro Rosso can bring a lot of input there: we want it this way, oil and water pipes being designed in a way that fits very well with the complete chassis system or the exhaust system.

“These are very important factors for the performance of the car because it influences the weight distribution, it influences the aerodynamic, the mechanical side.

“From this point of view we had a very busy and successful winter period because it was the first (time) Toro Rosso designers could come up with issues.

“In the past we just got the power unit, some electric boxes and just find a way to fit it into the car. Now we can come up with proposals, suggestions from our side which makes the life much easier. Hopefully more successful.”

This winter period work was reflected well onto the Barcelona track as French driver Pierre Gasly managed to post a time of 1:18.363, enough to place him inside the top 8, beating World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

And Franz Tost expects the team to keep on improving.

“I expect a lot from next year’s car because we are already working on this.

“Because of the experience we already got this year, our designers and the designers from Honda can optimise the integration of the power unit into the car.

“In the past we always had to fit in a last (minute) engine decision within a few weeks. Now we start already in February thinking about next year’s car.”