Tost reveals what was to blame in 2018

Toro Rosso team principal, Franz Tost has revealed the mixed performances were not down to the continuous power unit changes.

Instead, he insisted the difficulties were because of the STR12.

Despite some acute performances in Bahrain and Suzuka qualifying the team only finished ninth place in the constructor's championship.

Honda implemented many changes to test the development of the engines for 2019, and Tost was quick to remove the blame from Honda.

“For me, there were no fears about Honda, because they were already better than people thought last year.” The Austrian told Racer.com.

"Fortunately I was right when I said I expected a season pretty good together with Honda.

“Undoubtedly, I knew it would not be easy because there was a lot of research and development to deal with.

“As far as Honda is concerned, we have achieved our goals, the problems we suffered recently were not dependent on the engine, rather from the car.”

Tost outlined what improvements needed to be made in order for the team to succeed in 2019 saying: “We need to work on aerodynamics and we need to increase our understanding of the tires in terms of management.

“These will be the main topics for the next season.”