Toro Rosso's Giorgio Ascanelli says STR7 nose not aggressive enough

With much focus this year on the stepped nose designs incorporated by teams, Ascanelli believes it is one area of its design where more work needs to be done.

"I think we could have been more aggressive, but at the end of the day the fact that we had to homologate the car before running here just cut down our development time," he said following the launch of the STR7 at Jerez on Monday.

"Really, we got to that point when it was time to launch the impact [crash test] campaign. There are [other] solutions being studied."

Ascanelli suggested a new nose would appear over the course of the campaign, but he ruled out going as far as needing a new chassis.

"I am not going to do another chassis, but I think I am going to do another nose. Like we did last year, but last year it took a little bit too long. Hopefully this year we are better prepared for it."

Ascanelli has labelled his team's 2012 challenger a 'revolutionary evolution', with the design featuring some aggressive updates of concepts it introduced last year - like the twin-floor.

He said the decision to lengthen the gearbox was the result of the team electing to shorten its chassis for aerodynamic reasons.

The team has also been able to undercut the sidepods even more than last year, with the radiator inlets being quite small, because it has fitted another cooling inlet underneath the airbox.

"We have raised the sidepods again and moved the cooling behind the head of the driver," he said. "It's a shorter chassis, with a longer gearbox, so we will see."