Unfashionable B-team is F1's sleeper hit

Scuderia Toro Rosso is far from fashionable. It's one of Formula 1's smaller squads, with a little over 300 people on its books, but its association with Red Bull means it perhaps doesn't get a fair share of the affection that fans feel towards the minnow teams.

Yet in 2014 Toro Rosso has been grand prix racing's sleeper hit. Like the three other Renault-propelled teams, it endured a trying pre-season and headed to the Australian Grand Prix without a full race distance under its belt.

Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat not only lasted the distance in Australia, but came home eighth and ninth respectively. Toro Rosso has eight points in the bag so far - a modest haul on paper, but numerically this has been its strongest start to an F1 season.

While the opening four races of 2009 under the old points-down-to-eight regime were better in terms of results, this year has the potential to get better. All the Renault teams were held back at the start of the season, but STR seemed to suffer less and has built a solid foundation.

Of the Renault-powered quartet, Toro Rosso has taken the smallest hit in terms of its competitiveness relative to last season (its car has been 0.308 per cent off its 2013 average deficit to the pace).

That's not an entirely fair comparison, as it was the only one of those four to switch from another manufacturer, but it's still impressive for a team that, according to technical director James Key, spent the early running "firefighting".

"If anything, we're a bit frustrated with the start of the season because we think we could have done better from a points perspective," says Key. "But we can't be disappointed that we've got points on the board straight away.

Key thinks Toro Rosso could have done better © LAT

"Although we did our first race distance in Melbourne, we actually felt a lot more relaxed than perhaps the situation appeared from outside because we knew what the problems were as we went on.

"Not many of them were directly chassis-related and we knew we had stuff to do from that point of view, but we worked very hard with Renault. There were a lot of unknowns coming into the season."

Even when the Toro Rosso was stuttering and shuddering its way around Jerez at the start of testing, the drivers have always been very positive about its aerodynamic performance.

That confidence has been borne out by the fact its cars have been on the edge of Q3 so far this year, reaching the top 10 shootout 50 per cent of the time.

"We're not up to the level or Mercedes or Red Bull [aerodynamically], but are very much in the mix with everybody else," says Key.

"Our high-speed and medium-speed performance is pretty competitive. We have a little bit of a weakness in some lower-speed corners, which we are working on.

"Our drag level is about right, which is one of the parameters you really had to think about for the 2014 rules. And our corner speeds are not so far off. We've got to keep that minimum up as they are fresh aero regs."

The fact that the car is handy aerodynamically is evidence of the progress being made by the team. One of the reasons Key's predecessor, Giorgio Ascanelli, was ousted was that there was a feeling he wasn't able to get the best out of the available aero resources.

While Key is not an aerodynamicist by trade, coming from a race engineering background, he does have a proven track record as a technical director able to get the best out of midfield operations.

But the one area where his impact is limited is with the Renault engine. While the team can make some contribution to getting the best out of it, it's ultimately down to those at Viry to close the gap to Mercedes.

"The baseline power unit is strong, so eventually it's capable of being a lot more competitive," says Key. "Obviously, with the homologation process, there is only so much you can do with the hardware. There is software, and that's an area where there's a lot of potential.

"There are areas that are not homologated that we can work on from a chassis side and there are other parameters which are not homologated that affect the PU directly.

"There is still enough scope there to make some quite big steps. I guess the issue is we can see Mercedes is very mature in their development; it's like they've been through this cycle for several years and we're still playing catch-up.

Rookie Kvyat has impressed so far © LAT

"Whether we make it this season or not is difficult to tell. I hope we do, obviously, but with a slightly more open approach to next year I'm sure we'll be in better shape."

The drivers have also been a big positive. Kvyat has been the season's star rookie, finishing in the points in three out of four races (and 11th in the other).

There were big question marks over the Russian's readiness for F1, but he has made a big impression on the team.

"It's easy for us to forget that he is still very much learning the trade," says Key. "So you can imagine what's to come in that respect. The potential is massive.

"His winter testing was very short; we had a plan for a very intensive set of race distances to give him a feeling for things and for us to understand how to manage things that we didn't get.

"He came to Melbourne not having done that, and to race the way he did was absolutely fantastic. He's a natural, a great guy to work with and mentally very strong."

Kvyat has, understandably, claimed the plaudits, but team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne has also made a good start to the season. There were times last year when missing out on the Red Bull drive, plus a run of bad luck, seemed to get on top of him, but the Frenchman dedicated much of the winter to tackling that mental weakness.

While there's been some bad luck this year, the fact he has made Q3 three times (and would surely have done so in Bahrain but for a sudden change in the fuel-flow meter readings that forced the team to turn down the engine) shows he has emerged from the biggest disappointment of his career a stronger driver.

"He's probably the most focused I've ever seen him," says Key. "He worked very hard over the winter, even when it was a bit tough, and he's maintained a very positive approach. He's performing exactly as we would expect for someone in their third year."

With an effective driver line-up and a series of upgrades planned for the next four races, Toro Rosso's focus needs to be on consistently delivering two-car points finishes. If it can do that, then it has the potential to move up to sixth in the constructors' championship, something it targeted and missed out on last year.

While that doesn't sound like much, for a team like Toro Rosso (which, remember, remains a beefed-up version of archetypal minnow Minardi) it would be an impressive achievement.

The days when Toro Rosso was able to win races have gone. But while its aspirations are modest, pound-for-pound, it deserves credit for doing a good job so far in 2014 in difficult circumstances.