Daniel Ricciardo believes Toro Rosso are back in the midfield mix but at which end he cannot say.
Last season Toro Rosso had a disappointing campaign with Ricciardo and his team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne netting just 26 points.
That put the team a distant ninth, 50 points behind Williams and well ahead of the non-scoring Caterham team.
This year, though, Ricciardo reckons his team has made a leap forward and believes they will be running in the midfield when the F1 season kicks off later this month in Australia.
"We definitely still want to improve," said the 23-year-old.
"To pinpoint somewhere [specific] is probably hard at the moment - I think everyone's probably struggling with the tyres - but we basically want to get quicker. More grip, more downforce - everything a driver probably asks for.
"There's definitely probably room still for improvement but I'm sure these these things are going to come and I think temperatures will help our cause as well.
"But where we are is in the mix somewhere. Probably not at the very point end at the moment but to be honest we don't necessarily expect to be there.
"Obviously it's our [long-term] target but the realistic target is to be amongst the midfield pack that we sort of fell behind last year.
"I think we're in there - at which end I'm still not sure."
