Current AlphaTauri (formerly Toro Rosso)

Toro Rosso

FIA Entry: Scuderia Toro Rosso
Car 18: Sebastien Buemi
Car 19: Jamie Alguersuari
Engine: Ferrari V8
Team Principa:l Franz Tost
Technical Director: Giorgi Ascanelli
Race Engineer Car 18: Riccardo Adami
Race Engineer Car 19:Andrea Landi

Stats as of end 2010

First Entered 2006
Races Entered 90
Race Wins 1
Pole Positions 1
Fastest Laps 0
Driver World Championships 0
Constructor World Championships 0

The Beginning

Toro Rosso took over the Minardi entry in F1 in 2006. Minardi took part in 345 Grands Prix between 1985 and 2005 without a single win, podium, pole or fastest lap but were the starting point for double World Champion Fernando Alonso and race winners Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli.

Red Bull Takeover

At the end of 2005 current Minardi team owner Paul Stoddart sold the team to Red Bull to allow them to create a “Junior” team to bring new driver talent into F1. The Red Bull take over resulted in a change of name to Squadra Toro Rosso and then Scuderia Toro Rosso amidst much complaint from Minardi fans. For their first season in 2006 drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed used the STR1 chassis, which was essentially the Red Bull RB1 car. These were fitted with rev and air flow limited 3.0 litre Ford engines to allow Toro Rosso to compete in the new 2.4 litre formula in place for 2006.

Liuzzi scored a point for the team at the US Grand Prix, a race where only 9 cars finished. The development of the new engines by the other teams put Toro Rosso in a very uncompetitive position and they tended to qualify toward the back of the grid and run in those positions in the race.

Ferrari Customer

With the senior Red Bull team moving to Renault power for 2007 Toro Rosso picked up their Ferrari engine contract. Speed and Liuzzi continued as drivers. The STR2 proved unreliable and both drivers made mistakes during the year leading to speculation that they would be replaced. Speed eventually lost his seat to BMW test driver, and Red Bull junior driver, Sebastien Vettel. In changeable weather at the Chinese Grand Prix Vettel bought his car home 4th with Liuzzi 6th.

For 2008 Vettel was joined by reigning Champ Car Series winner Sebastien Bourdais as Liuzzi moved to Force India. Bourdais finished 7th at the opening race of the season in Australia and Vettel then took 4th in Monaco. As the season progressed Vettel in particular was a regular points scorer and in wet qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix put his car on pole. The rain continued into race day and Vettel went on to win the race becoming the youngest ever Grand Prix victor. More points finishes for Vettel in the final races of the season put Toro Rosso 6th in the Constructors Championship and earned him a place in the Red Bull senior team for 2009.

Sebastien Buemi joined Bourdais for 2009 and after the highs of 2008 the team came back down to earth in ’09. Bourdais was dismissed mid season due to poor race results and Jaime Alguersuari took his seat for the remainder of the season. The drivers managed a few low points finished but the team dropped to 10th in the Constructors Championship.

Buemi and Alguersuari continued for 2010 and again picked up some minor points placing’s, helped by the revised points scoring system for the season. The team finished 9th in the Constructors Championship but were the lowest placed of the established F1 teams.

2011

Toro Rosso continue with the same driver line up in 2011 and, with the STR6 car and Ferrari engines, hope they can move further up the grid.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives He is contracted to Renault but it appears the supposed rumours were

i) They want a French driver so take your pick from
-Ocon ( will this mean severing ties with Merc who refused Renault once)
- Gasly ( unless he severs ties with Red Bull who Renault don't want to deal with anymore unless they are forced to give back Sainz - not sure Carlos wants this)
-Vergne - he just won Formula E so has he pushed himself into contention
-Grosjean - they are showing first signs of impatience at Haas and supposedly Perez could replace him but it must be a slim chance going back to Enstone


ii) Suggestion was they would consider hiring Alonso to help get to the front

-----------------------------------------

Toro Rosso
- If Buemi has done so well outside of F1 - he's not getting a look in since being ruthlessly dumped by Toro Rosso. Would he do a lot better than Hartley who just can't buy any luck at the moment

Toro Rosso team have a knack of ruining a promising young driver career - the trouble is now they've ruined all theirs and it appears they are resorting to any other supposedly promising young driver out there including Norris

 

[siffert_fan]

Red Bull gives green-light to Toro Rosso penalties - Pitpass.com

This shows how eager RB is for Honda to progress.

 

[Il_leone]

unfortunately poor Hartley is bearing the brunt of it although Gasly is now worried that Sauber will overtake Toro Rosso due to the Ferrari engine

 

[Bill Boddy]

I thought that once Honda got rid of Alonso they would go forward at great speed. Didn't Alonso use his third engine for the first time this the season a couple of races ago? /sarcasm.

 

[RasputinLives]

What made you think that Bill Boddy? Has anyone one said that ever?

 

[Bill Boddy]

What made you think that Bill Boddy? Has anyone one said that ever?

No, but plenty have said that they would like it to happen.

 

[RasputinLives]

I don't think anyone ever said Alonso was holding Honda back just that his constant berating and belittling of them was probably not doing their confidence any good.

As for people wanting Honda to be a success? Not sure why that is an issue.

 

[cider_and_toast]

I want as many first class engines in F1 as possible.

 

[Il_leone]

Honda being successful in F1 is critical to get other engine manufacturers in so we don;t we have a 2 tier system pretty much at the moment

apparently Honda demanded the MGU to be omitted from the new rules which could help them move forward but also attract Porsche to come along

 

[Bill Boddy]

....As for people wanting Honda to be a success? Not sure why that is an issue.

It isn't, it's why they wanted it which seems to be that they want McLaren to fail.

 

[RasputinLives]

*shrug* you like who you like. I can perfectly understand why McLaren as an organisation make individuals activley dislike them. For the record I would have loved to see McLaren Honda be a success but feel McLaren treated Honda terribly. They were supposed to be partners and one team.

 

[Il_leone]

I know this is a Toro Rosso page but the name Mclaren Honda remembered for the Senna- Prost era of dominance will now be tarnished with the disastrous renaissance which included Alonso /Button and Ron Dennis. On paper that should have been one of the strongest teams to ever existed but reduced to embarrassment.

The whole project was weighed with huge expectations and it did not start on the right footnote and created further problems that both sides needed addressing. The whole partnership has been been completely mismanaged...it is very hard to see either ever working with each other again until another decade or so and a complete change of attitude. The whole set up of exclusive is not going to work in the current era when the the leadinge two engine manufacturers have other teams to also get additional feedback. There are faults on both sides - Mclaren should have kept a close eye on what Honda promised and also be willing to let engines supply a second team, Ron should have got Ross Brawn but his ego tells him not to which was ridiculous

Honda maybe should have been forthcoming about the engine progress and also be more open to using people outside their own company

How is that neither party could agree that the engine building and development be done in Milton Keynes to take advantage of potential ex engineers from Mercedes, Red Bull and other teams does not make sense at all.


Honda meanwhile said it was aiming to be top 3 with Toro Rosso which sounded very ambitious and laughable... clearly they were not going to do that with the resources and budget of Toro Rosso. Perhaps with Red Bull the potential will be there. given the proximity of the team and Honda Europe HQ to suceed

The other talk is will Toro Rosso be bought out by Honda in future possibly when the new engine regulations come in despite Honda's last disastrous attempt as a team

Honda aint Toyota, it did have history of success in F1 so this failed partnership is hard to take for neutral F1 fans

 

[cider_and_toast]

I'm sorry but if the 'Earth Car' hadn't already trashed Honda's reputation then nothing that followed ever will.

 

[RasputinLives]

Earth car is the exact reason Honda won't buy out Torro Rosso and become a works team as well. The scars are still too fresh.

 

[Il_leone]

Red Bull are working on the basis they are going to be the Honda works team and Mateschitz does not want to spend as much money in the future so you get the feeling potentially this is a long term partnership

 

[RasputinLives]

Running a Honda engine doesn't make them a Honda works team.

 

[Il_leone]

Red Bull seems to think that the deal gives them a works team status with Honda

 

[RasputinLives]

My understanding of 'works' team is the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari who ran and build their own engine so we may be at cross purposes.

Honda are an engine supplier and the rules state all engines supplied anywhere should be the same.

 

[Il_leone]

Maybe the phrase for Red Bull is works team parity with Mercedes and Ferrari because Honda will be designing and building the engine to purposely suit their chassis something they don;t have with Renault

 

[Bill Boddy]

RBR always believed that the Renault engine had nothing to do with their successes and everything do do with their failures. They may have a hard time next season.