QUOTE (Clatter @ Mar 21 2010, 08:09)
I don't remember it, and I cannot find anything regarding complaints. As far as I can find both teams used the 056 spec engine. With homologation I dont believe any team would be running different specs of engine.
STR's half owner threatened Ferrari during the season, because Ferrari would not provide their other engine. Which also had had a number of "reliability" improvements, which actually made the engine less reliable. However a lot more powerful.
This has been a hot topic for a great deal of time. The development of Ferrari and McLaren homologated engines was openly spoken about by Renault F1's team principle, Flavio Briatore. Commentators spoke about Honda and Toyota's disgust that homologation principles were stepped around, as the Japanese teams had - like Renaullt - stopped engine their development programs, while Ferrari, Mercedes and perhaps BMW had continued them on.
Adam Cooper from Autosport:
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Toro Rosso's move towards the sharp-end of the field has been evident since the STR3 was introduced in Monaco. When the team began to edge ahead of the sister Red Bull outfit, people wondered, how much of this was about the Ferrari engine?
Much, has been made of the 30bhp discrepancy between the Renault and Ferrari engines in the two cars, and that became increasingly evident after Hockenheim, where STR was apparently upgraded from customer to works spec power supply - Maranello having homologated two types of engine.
Coultard said in January 2009:
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"Towards the end of last season Toro Rosso were able to out-perform Red Bull Racing in many cases, but I think the fact that there's been a publicly acknowledged upgrade to the Renault engine by the FIA and accepted by the other manufacturers completely confirms what we were saying - that there were some differences," said Coulthard.
"During the year when we asked the question that we think there might be some differences in engine performance, people might see that as an excuse. You now know it wasn't an excuse because it's been validated as a necessary change going into 2009."
There has been much information available on the issue of Ferrari and Mercedes developing homologated engines while other manufacturers did not, its been a major issue, and one several commentators said that particularly incensed Honda and Toyota. Not sure about BMW, but they've gone too ...
