'Honda engines require a lot of work'

Toro Rosso boss James Key has been discussing his team's attempts to integrate Honda engines into their car for next season, and stated that 'adaptation work' has been required to ensure that last season's chassis is stil usable, without ripping up and starting again.

The Red Bull feeder team made the switch to Honda from Renault in the off season, with the latter switching to McLaren for the 2018 campaign.

With the new engine comes new challenges, and Key has stressed that the team has no desire to spend the entire off-season redesigning the car's aerodynamics to align with the Honda engine.

But he was quick to point out that despite this concession, there was still a significant amount of work required to ensure that the car is optimised by the time the Australian Grand Prix rolls around in March.

Key told Motorsport.com: "We try and stick to a rule that, if a car has already been in a development process for a while, not to upset any major items such as aero surfaces and that sort of thing, so we're not starting from scratch in too many areas.

"We've adapted the car under the skin as best we can. And that's led to quite a different approach to the chassis design, to the way the gearbox works, and so on.

"We've carried over the concepts and developed them further from this year's car. It's a very compact unit, but a different architecture to the Renault, it requires a lot of adaptation work."

McLaren driver Fernando Alonso was extremely vocal throughout the 2017 season regarding the Honda engine and its reliability, and it is believed the Spaniard only agreed to re-sign with the team for the upcoming championship on the proviso that Honda were replaced by Renault.