STR9 is Toro Rosso's challenger for the 2014 F1 season

Toro Rosso revealed their 2014 challenger, the STR9Toro Rosso STR9Italy, 2014 > 20144 photos
, in the Jerez pitlane ahead of the first pre-season test. On the occasion Jean-Eric Vergne was joined by rookie Daniil Kvyat to present the car the Italian team who wants to improve the eighth place in last year's Constructors' Championship.The STR9's nose attracted most of the attention.

The STR9 keeps the traditional Toro RossoToro RossoItaly, 2006 > present10 models
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livery and and features a prominent nose that is going to be a common feature up and down the grid in 2014. Until now Toro Rosso's seems to be the most extreme version revealed yet with a long drooping point. This season saw a complete revamp of F1's technical regulations take place, which meant that teams couldn't just produce an evolution of their 2013 cars. Chief Designer Luca Furbatto says Toro Rosso have been working on their new car for around 18 months.

"It has been a fantastic challenge but very hard work. Pretty much all the systems on the car are brand-new and that's certainly a concern from a reliability point of view as the season progresses, because we won't have known reference points from the past few years. Everyone in Faenza and Bicester has worked very hard and we have invested in different technologies and simulations in order to be as best-prepared as possible. We started STR9 in the summer of 2012, initially just purely on the simulation side. When James Key arrived in late 2012, he focused mainly on the 2014 car in terms of planning, simulation targets and internal resourcing whilst we were still designing the STR8. To his credit we were able to perform the first STR9 wind tunnel test shortly before Christmas 2012, much earlier than previous Toro Rosso projects," Furbatto said.

This year will see Toro Rosso switch from FerrariFerrariItaly, 1947 > present233 models
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to RenaultRenaultFrance, 1898 > present189 models
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power. Engine has been definitely the biggest change to the regulations and has involved switching from a normally aspirated 2.4 litre V8 to a 1.6 V6 turbocharged engine, which is only one component of what is now referred to as the power unit, or power plant.

"The new power unit consists of an engine which is turbo-charged, a new and much powerful version of the Energy Recovery System, operating as an electric motor/generator connected to the crankshaft (MGU-K), and another electric motor/generator connected to the turbo (MGU-H), running at a much higher speed. The combination of these two energy recovery systems is the hybrid part of the new power unit package, the 'green' effect of the next generation of Formula 1 cars. The engine, although it's smaller and more compact, requires a fairly complicated energy management with all those motors and controllers working at the same time and exchanging energies between a battery pack and the two electric motors," explained Furbatto.

Driver lineup

Jean-Eric Vergne has been retained for a third season, and will effectively become the leading driver of the team, following Ricciardo's promotion to Red BullRed BullAustria, 2004 > present12 models
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. He will be joined by rookie Russian driver Daniil Kvyat who won the GP3 title in 2013 with MW Arden and drove in Practice One at both the United States and Brazilian GPs.