Toro Rosso say late car debut was wise

The Faenza-based squad competed with a version of last year's STR2 in the first five races of the season, before introducing the new STR3 in Monaco.

Although the move was risky, it paid off for the team, who scored a point in the car's first outing.

"We had decided to start the season with a modified version of the '07 car and on balance, we have no regrets," said Ascanelli in a mid-season review.

"Currently, we are just one point short of our total for the whole of last year, so we must have done something right! I don't regret any decisions we took.

"However, in the early part of the season with STR2B, we picked up fewer points than we should have done, but this was not because we were using the old car, but rather it was down to the way we ran it and an unexpected reliability issue which was due to problems on quality control from a supplier.

"All the evolution components we fitted to the STR2 completed big mileages in winter testing and when we came to the races, they then threw up some difficulties. Nevertheless, we picked up two points in the first five races using this car."

Ascanelli reckons the decision to introduce the new car late was "wise", although he admits the team have not had a trouble-free time.

He also believes Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel will now be able to push to the limit now the team have enough spares.

"The STR 3 is a much better car," the Italian added. "Introducing it once the season was underway was the wise choice although its introduction has not been painless.

"We suffered a significant lack of parts which delayed the introduction of the new car from Turkey to Monaco. I think, as I've said before that we were brave, mad and clever to launch the car in Monaco, because it did pay off.

"We handled a difficult situation in terms of parts rather well and this weekend at Silverstone should be the first race where we have sufficient parts to race at a decent level.

"One side effect of this will be that our drivers will feel freer to take a few more risks, because up until now, they have been very mindful of our parts availability situation. I hope they will now be more daring and consequently go faster."

And the technical chief says there is still more to come from the STR3, as the team continue to learn how to extract the best from it.

"We are not yet where we should be with the new car. The last race in France produced a good qualifying and race, but I feel that neither our drivers nor we engineers have yet taken the best out of the car. We still have a steep learning curve and there is more to come.

"This is partly due to the fact that we adopted a significant aero upgrade for the Magny-Cours race having only had the briefest of tests in Barcelona. It changed the car quite significantly and we are still learning how to get the most out of the new package."

Toro Rosso have scored seven points so far this year and are currently in ninth place in the standings.