Toro Rosso has confirmed it will use year-old Ferrari engines next year.
After months of speculation about the future of both Toro Rosso and the senior Red Bull team, both now have engine contracts in place for 2016. Red Bull announced a deal on Friday to use TAG Heuer-badged Renault engines, while Toro Rosso finally got the go-ahead from the FIA to use year-old Ferrari engines on Wednesday and confirmed the deal on Friday.
"It's great to be working with Ferrari again," Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost said. "We had a fruitful relationship in the past and I'm sure it won't take long for us all to be working together very well again. It's true that time will be very tight for us to be ready for the first test, but we have the right team of people for this and I'm confident that together we will achieve a competitive package for next year - bring on 2016!
"Logistically, with our engine supplier just a short drive up the Autostrada and even linguistically, the return to Ferrari will make for an easy working relationship," said the team. Taking this into account, and considering the past achievements with our friends from Maranello, we can certainly expect an improvement in our performance next year. We can also count on Carlos [Sainz] and Max [Verstappen] who, after being confirmed for the 2016 season, will be able to translate all this year's learnings and experience into additional valuable feedback throughout the season."
Red Bull had initially approached Ferrari about using its latest specification power unit for its senior team, but Maranello was not willing to give one of its main rivals engine parity. Instead, Red Bull renegotiated its deal with Renault to continue for another year and passed the Ferrari offer down to Toro Rosso. Ferrari will supply its 2016 engine to its works team, Sauber and new team Haas.
Manor ran a 2014-spec Ferrari engine this year and was a long way off the pace, but Ferrari made considerable progress between 2014 and 2015 with a series of major updates. By the end of the season the current Ferrari engine was estimated to be level on power with the class-leading Mercedes' engine and some way ahead of the Renault.
Toro Rosso last used Ferrari engines in 2013 before a switch to Renault ahead of the introduction of the current V6 turbo regulations.