Scuderia Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

File:Scuderia Toro Rosso logo.png
Full name	Scuderia Toro Rosso
Base	Faenza, Italy
Team principal(s)	Franz Tost
Technical director	Giorgio Ascanelli
Website	www.scuderiatororosso.com
Formula One World Championship career
First entry	2006 Bahrain Grand Prix
Last entry	2024 Qatar Grand Prix
Races entered	106
Constructors' Championships	0
Drivers' Championships	0
Race victories	1
Pole positions	1
Fastest laps	0
2010 position	9th (13 points)

Scuderia Toro Rosso (Italian for Team Red Bull), also known simply as Toro Rosso or by its abbreviation STR, is an Italian Formula One racing team (one of two F1 teams owned by Austrian beverage company Red Bull, the other being Red Bull Racing). It made its racing debut in the 2006 Formula One season, after Paul Stoddart sold his remaining interest in the Minardi team at the end of 2005 to Red Bull's owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, who subsequently struck a 50/50 joint-ownership deal with former F1 driver, Gerhard Berger, before the start of the season. In late November 2008, Red Bull regained total ownership of Toro Rosso after buying back Berger's share of the team.

Scuderia Toro Rosso was the junior/sister team of Red Bull Racing, with the aim of developing the skills of promising drivers for the senior team. Since 2010, the team has competed as a 'true constructor', independent of their sister team.

Vitantonio Liuzzi scored the team's first point in its first season at the 2006 United States Grand Prix. The team's first pole position, podium and victory were scored by Sebastian Vettel at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix.

For the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, Toro Rosso used Ferrari V8 engines, taking over the contract that their senior team broke from at the end of 2006. The team principal is Franz Tost, formerly of BMW's motor sport division.

The team's set 2008 driver lineup was Sebastian Vettel, third driver for BMW Sauber in 2006 before switching to a race seat at Toro Rosso midway through the 2007 season, and Sébastien Bourdais, the four-time winner of the Champ Car World Series. Sébastien Buemi replaced Vettel for the 2009 season, while Bourdais was dropped after the German Grand Prix, following a series of poor performances and had scored only two points. Jaime Alguersuari took over Bourdais' seat at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and kept the seat for the remaining part of the year. Both Alguersuari and Buemi have been retained by the team until the end of the 2011 season.

Origins

Main article: Minardi

Minardi had competed in Formula One from 1985 to 2005. Despite having a large fan base, they had been one of the least competitive teams in the sport, due to a relatively restricted budget. Owner Paul Stoddart claimed to have had 41 approaches to buy the team, but preferred to sell it to someone who could 'take it further' than he could and who would maintain it in its traditional base in Italy. Included in the terms of the deal with Red Bull was the clause that the team must keep its headquarters in Faenza, Italy until at least the 2007 season.

Whilst Red Bull have abandoned the Minardi name in line with their own sponsorship and marketing plans, the use of the Italian language in the name is intended to hint at the team's Italian heritage. Red Bull changed the name of the team immediately after taking control of the team on 1 November 2005. It was initially reported as 'Squadra Toro Rosso' but then changed because 'squadra' in Italian depicts a 'squad' like a football team, to 'Scuderia Toro Rosso'. Many Minardi fans were upset by this move, and over 15,000 signed an online petition to keep the Minardi name, but were unsuccessful.

Racing history

2006

Vitantonio Liuzzi at the 2006 Canadian Grand Prix

Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were the 2006 race drivers, with Neel Jani filling the test/third driver role. Liuzzi had raced part time for Red Bull Racing in 2005, while Speed entered F1 following the Red Bull Driver Search in the United States. Jani was the test driver for Sauber Petronas in 2004.

The 2006 chassis was a modified version of the 2005 Red Bull Racing RB1. Some teams felt that this infringed the Concorde Agreement as each team is expected to design their own car. Toro Rosso claim that this design was originally produced during 2004 by Jaguar Racing, Red Bull's predecessor, and that the intellectual rights had belonged to the Ford Motor Company, Jaguar Racing's parent company before passing to Toro Rosso.

The team used Minardi's contracted supply of rev limited and air restricted Cosworth 3.0l V10 engines. This concession had been granted to assist less well funded teams by avoiding the cost of sourcing a new supply of V8 engines as required by the 2006 regulations. The continuation of this arrangement after the Red Bull takeover caused friction with other teams, in particular Super Aguri and Midland who felt that the engine conferred too much of an advantage. They contended that the concession to allow the team use a V10 engine was based on Minardi's poor financial situation, and should not have continued to apply after the team achieved a completely different financial footing.

As the season progressed, the Toro Rossos began to struggle in qualifying as their competitors developed their new V8 engines to rev closer to 20,000 rpm to get more power. To try and balance the playing field Toro Rosso asked for an extra 500 revs for qualifying, however the FIA permitted them 300 revs only.

Vitantonio Liuzzi driving for the team at the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix

2007

For the 2007 season, Toro Rosso began using the Ferrari V8 engine, taking over the contract that their senior team broke from by switching to Renault power.

At the launch of the STR2 on 13 February, Toro Rosso confirmed Liuzzi as a 2007 driver. In testing in Bahrain on 24 February, Scott Speed was confirmed as the team's second driver. Three-time Champ Car champion Sébastien Bourdais was an occasional test driver several times during the season.

The team appointed new technical director Giorgio Ascanelli to replace temporary stand-in Alex Hitzinger on 2 April.

The 2007 season was generally disappointing, with poor reliability and driver errors leading to a low finishing record. Following the European Grand Prix, Speed was dropped under controversial circumstances and was replaced by BMW Sauber development driver Sebastian Vettel who was later confirmed for 2008.

At the Chinese Grand Prix the Toro Rosso scored their best results, with Vettel finishing fourth and Vitantonio Liuzzi sixth, scoring eight points for the team. These were also the drivers' best finishes in Formula One. It was a marked improvement over the preceding Japanese Grand Prix, where Vettel crashed into Mark Webber's Red Bull under safety car conditions while they were running second and third respectively, and Liuzzi lost a potential point after a 25-second penalty for overtaking Adrian Sutil's Spyker for eighth under waved yellow flags dropped him to ninth.

With the 2008 Concorde Agreement outlawing customer cars from 2010 onwards, Dietrich Mateschitz put the Toro Rosso team up for sale in March 2008. He aimed to secure a buyer by the end of 2009, while the team continued in its present guise until then.

2008

Sebastian Vettel leads Sébastien Bourdais at the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

Scuderia Toro Rosso's drivers for 2008 were Sebastian Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais. Bourdais earned his first points in F1 with a 7th place finish at the Australian Grand Prix. Vettel scored his first points of the season with a 5th place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix. The team showed steady improvement throughout the season, leading up to a solid performance at the Belgian Grand Prix which saw both cars running in the top six for most of the race, and with Bourdais and Vettel running 3rd and 4th respectively on the final lap until cars on tyres better suited to the extreme wet conditions passed them, demoting Vettel to 5th and Bourdais to 7th. The double points finish moved STR above Honda and level with Williams in the Constructor's Championship.

The team pulled off a massive shock at the wet Italian Grand Prix, with Vettel claiming a first pole position and the first win for himself and the team. This was the first win by a team based in Italy other than Ferrari since the 1957 German Grand Prix, which was won by Juan Manuel Fangio in a Maserati and also the first win for a Ferrari engine in a customer chassis. Vettel beat second-place Heikki Kovalainen by 12 seconds. Vettel was at it again in the next race, the Singapore Grand Prix, Formula One's first ever night race. Vettel qualified 7th and finished the race in 5th, while Bourdais could only manage 12th.

Sébastien Bourdais and Felipe Massa battling for position early on in the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix. They later made contact, for which the Toro Rosso driver was penalised.

At the next race in Japan Vettel again showed his class finishing 6th. Bourdais, meanwhile, was doing well, until Felipe Massa, who had been running in 8th tried to overtake Bourdais. Massa had climbed up to 8th place after having dropped down to 13th as a result of his drive-through and his first pit-stop. Just after Bourdais left the pitlane after making his final stop, Massa attempted to pass him and the two cars collided at the first corner. Massa spun, but rejoined the track and eventually finished 8th. Bourdais finished the race in 6th place, but had 25 seconds added to his overall time as penalty for the incident, dropping him down to 10th place. This ultimately had the effect of promoting Massa to 7th place, and giving him an extra championship point. It was a controversial penalty, and Bourdais was adamant that he was not to blame.

Vettel's performances earned him a place at the senior Red Bull team for 2009. However, his final drive for Toro Rosso saw him almost play a crucial role in the world championship decider in Brazil. In mixed conditions, Lewis Hamilton needed 5th place to clinch the championship, and was running in this position when he was overtaken by Vettel with two laps remaining. Unable to keep up, Hamilton dropped back, and only took the title when he and Vettel both overtook Timo Glock on the final lap.

2009

With Vettel moving to Red Bull Racing replacing the retired David Coulthard Sébastien Buemi and Sébastien Bourdais led the team's assault in the 2009 World Championship. The team unveiled their new car last of all the teams taking part in the 2009 season, on 9 March 2009. Before the season started, the team's boss Franz Tost said that it would be "difficult" to do as well as they did in the 2008 season. On 16 July 2009, the team announced that Sébastien Bourdais' contract was to be terminated with immediate effect due to disappointing results. On 20 July 2009, the team announced that Jaime Alguersuari would replace him as official driver for the rest of the season. Multiple WRC Champion Sébastien Loeb had been quoted in the French sports-paper L'Equipe as being interested in replacing Bourdais. It had been stated that Loeb would not be available to race in F1 until after the end of the WRC season. He would've been available to make his F1 debut at the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November. However, this was not to be as the FIA denied him a super licence which is required to drive in Formula One. The season ended with Toro Rosso finishing in tenth and last place in the championship after being overtaken by Force India after their podium finish in Belgium. However Toro Rosso's form picked up towards the end of the season with Sébastien Buemi scoring points in the final two races. However, Jaime Alguersuari failed to score any points in the season.

2010

Sébastien Buemi testing the Toro Rosso STR5 during pre-season testing at Circuito de Jerez.

Scuderia Toro Rosso confirmed that they would keep Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, in the hope of achieving better results. On 10 November 2009, Toro Rosso announced that Sébastien Buemi would continue to race for them in 2010. No official announcement of the second driver had been made up to then, however Jaime Alguersuari was reported to take the second race seat, as published on 26 November 2009. On 22 January 2010, the team confirmed the signing of Alguersuari, and he scored the first points of his career by finishing ninth under the new points system at the Malaysian Grand Prix. He finished tenth in Spain scoring a point thanks to Lewis Hamilton's penultimate lap crash. He also received a drive-through penalty in that race. At the next race in Monaco Buemi finished 11th and Alguersuari 12th, the last two runners at the end of the race. However, when Michael Schumacher received a 20-second penalty for a last turn overtake against Fernando Alonso, Buemi was moved up to tenth, scoring a point.

2011

Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari have been confirmed as drivers of the team's STR6 for 2011, Daniel Ricciardo will be the team's reserve and test driver, and will also take part in free practice at each of the Grands Prix. The STR6 was launched on 1 February in Valencia, Spain.

At the beginning of the season in Australia, Buemi finished eighth and collected four championship points. The Malaysian Grand Prix saw no points while China saw both cars in the Top 10 for qualifying, Alguersuari in seventh and Buemi in tenth. However Alguersuari turned out to be the race's only retirement and Buemi finished way down the field. Turkey saw Buemi finishing ninth while Spain was another bad race for the team with Alguersuari again failing to score. Monaco saw Buemi in the points in tenth, ahead of Nico Rosberg whilst Alguersuari crashed out along with Vitaly Petrov in an incident that brought out the red flag to the race. In Canada, Alguersuari finished eighth, helped out by the retirements of Adrian Sutil, Nick Heidfeld and Paul di Resta. Buemi also finished in tenth for the team's first double score since the 2009 Australian Grand Prix when Buemi was seventh ahead of Sébastien Bourdais.

In the British Grand Prix, Alguersuari scored a point with a tenth place finish while Buemi collided with di Resta, which forced his retirement from the race. Neither driver finished in the points in Germany, but both drivers picked up points in Hungary; Buemi came from 23rd on the grid to finish eighth while Alguersuari added another point to his tally with tenth place. At the Belgian Grand Prix, Alguersuari qualified sixth, but retired on the first lap after contact with Bruno Senna. Buemi also retired after contact with Sergio Pérez. Both drivers picked up points at Monza, with Alguersuari a career-best seventh and Buemi tenth. In Singapore, Buemi finished 12th and Alguersuari was classified 21st after crashing in the closing stages.

Sponsorship

Sports sponsorship is a major part of Red Bull's marketing strategy, and Scuderia Toro Rosso is not the first sports team to be bought and completely re-branded: it has done the same for Red Bull Racing (formerly Jaguar Racing), the Austrian football club Red Bull Salzburg (formerly SV Austria Salzburg), Austrian Ice Hockey team Red Bull Salzburg EC and MLS' Red Bull New York (previously Metrostars).

Other current sponsors and suppliers include Hangar-7, Volkswagen, Advanti Racing (wheel), USAG, Magneti Marelli, and Hexagon Metrology.

On 6 September 2011, the week before the Italian Grand Prix, the team confirmed that they had received a sizeable investment from Spanish petroleum group Cepsa.

Complete Formula One results

(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)

Year	Chassis	Engine	Tyres	Drivers	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Points	WCC
2006	STR1	Cosworth TJ2005 V10	M		BHR	MAL	AUS	SMR	EUR	ESP	MON	GBR	CAN	USA	FRA	GER	HUN	TUR	ITA	CHN	JPN	BRA		1	9th
				Vitantonio Liuzzi	11	11	Ret	14	Ret	15	10	13	13	8	13	10	Ret	Ret	14	10	14	13
				Scott Speed	13	Ret	9	15	11	Ret	13	Ret	10	Ret	10	12	11	13	13	14	18	11
2007	STR2	Ferrari 056 2.4 V8	B		AUS	MAL	BHR	ESP	MON	CAN	USA	FRA	GBR	EUR	HUN	TUR	ITA	BEL	JPN	CHN	BRA			8	7th
				Vitantonio Liuzzi	14	17	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	17	Ret	16	Ret	Ret	15	17	12	9	6	13
				Scott Speed	Ret	14	Ret	Ret	9	Ret	13	Ret	Ret	Ret
				Sebastian Vettel											16	19	18	Ret	Ret	4	Ret
2008	STR2B STR3	Ferrari 056 2.4 V8	B		AUS	MAL	BHR	ESP	TUR	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	EUR	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	CHN	BRA		39	6th
				Sébastien Bourdais	7†	Ret	15	Ret	Ret	Ret	13	17	11	12	18	10	7	18	12	10	13	14
				Sebastian Vettel	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	17	5	8	12	Ret	8	Ret	6	5	1	5	6	9	4
2009	STR4	Ferrari 056 2.4 V8	B		AUS	MAL	CHN	BHR	ESP	MON	TUR	GBR	GER	HUN	EUR	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	BRA	ABU			8	10th
				Sébastien Bourdais	8	10	11	13	Ret	8	18	Ret	Ret
				Jaime Alguersuari										15	16	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	14	Ret
				Sébastien Buemi	7	16	8	17	Ret	Ret	15	18	16	16	Ret	12	13	Ret	Ret	7	8
2010	STR5	Ferrari 056 2.4 V8	B		BHR	AUS	MAL	CHN	ESP	MON	TUR	CAN	EUR	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	KOR	BRA	ABU	13	9th
				Sébastien Buemi	16	Ret	11	Ret	Ret	10	16	8	9	12	Ret	12	12	11	14	10	Ret	13	15
				Jaime Alguersuari	13	11	9	13	10	11	12	12	13	Ret	15	Ret	13	15	12	11	11	11	9
2011	STR6	Ferrari 056 2.4 V8	P		AUS	MAL	CHN	TUR	ESP	MON	CAN	EUR	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	SIN	JPN	KOR	IND	ABU	BRA	41*	8th*
				Sébastien Buemi	8	13	14	9	14	10	10	13	Ret	15	8	Ret	10	12	Ret	9	Ret
				Jaime Alguersuari	11	14	Ret	16	16	Ret	8	8	10	12	10	Ret	7	21†	15	7	8

* Season in progress.
^† The driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.
The beginning of the 2010 season saw the introduction of a new points system in F1.

External links

• Official Site
• Red Bull F1 Portal
• Official Picture Website