Toro Rosso F1 Team
Austrian beverage company Red Bull is the owner of both Scuderia Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing. Having made its racing debut in the 2006 F1 season under the joint ownership of Red Bull’s owner Dietrich Mateschitz and former F1 driver Gerhard Berger, Red Bull became the sole owner of the team in November 2008. Scuderio Toro Rosso is considered to be Red Bull’s ‘B’ team, as it focuses on developing the skills and realizing the full potential of new young drivers, with a view to promoting them to the senior team, Red Bull Racing.
The new team’s very first point was scored by Vitantonio Luizzi at the 2006 US Grand Prix, with the first pole position and victory being scored by Sebastian Vettel at the Italian Grand Prix in 2008. Vettel had moved across from BMW Sauber, where he was third driver, in the middle of the 2007 F1 racing season. The other driver for Toro Rosso in 2008 was Sebastien Bourdais, winner of four Champ Car Championships. In the 2009 season Sebastien Buemi replaced Vettel, who had moved up to the Red Bull Racing Team. Bourdais was replaced by Jaime Alguersauri after the German Grand Prix, with poor performance being given as the reason for the parting of the ways with Bourdais.
Both Buemi and Alguersauri will continue driving for Toro Rosso in the 2010 season. Some have expressed surprise that such an inexperienced driver as Alguersauri was signed up for 2010, especially in light of the fact that he failed to score any points during the 2009 season. No doubt team officials, under the direction of team principal, Franz Tost, and technical director, Giorgio Ascanelli, have seen the potential in this young Spanish driver and are willing to give him the opportunity to prove himself. Certainly 2010 is set to write another interesting chapter in the history of F1’s youngest team – Scuderia Toro Rosso.