Toro Rosso’s winter of discontent
Nothing inspires success like some good old fashioned failure. A kid is flunking maths. Fearing the prospect of summer school, restricted television and computer time, and a whole host of other negative consequences, he decides to work his butt off. And
would you believe it? He ends up passing the year with flying colours. The threat of failure is an integral part of the human condition. Without it, we wouldn’t have written the fable of the tortoise plodding past the snoozing Hare, Bill Gates would still
be getting stuffed into his locker, and Rocky Balboa never would have staged his famous comeback against Mr. T in the third instalment of the series.
In the realm of Formula One, it is precisely this ‘failure principle’ that is motivating F1’s Toro Rosso to shift into high gear for the 2011 season. As far as the team boss, Franz Tost, is concerned, they are looking at a very long winter of hard work
ahead of them if they are going to improve.
And judging from their 2010 performance, Toro Rosso has its work cut out for it. The drivers, Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari accrued a measly eight points between them for the Drivers’ Championship. Given that the team earned an abysmal ninth place
in the constructors’ standings, it would seem the drivers were essentially puttering around various international tracks in vehicles with engines pilfered from John Deer lawnmowers.
To the team’s credit however, Tost makes no bones about the fact that unless his organization wants to compete in international go-karting events, they’ll have to start clocking some serious overtime.
"I'm not so happy with the complete season,” he said with wry understatement. “We will have some tough months in November, December and January because we have a lot of work ahead of us. We simply have to catch up.”
Acknowledging that the developmental process is “year-by-year,” Tost affirmed his commitment to building a better team. “We have to improve the infrastructure, we have to bring [the right] people in. We have a lot of work in front of us.”
Despite the gruelling production schedule awaiting his organization over the winter recess, the team boss remained undaunted. Maintaining a positive but determined attitude, Tost insisted that Toro Rosso would continue sharpening its competitive edge over
the likes of Lotus and Virgin next year.
"Yes, I'm confident about this," he said. "We will work hard because this is our target."
Indeed, if failure spurs us to greater successes, then Toro Rosso is on the fast track to some amazing accomplishments next season.
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