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.

 

[Fenderman]

Actually I quite agree. I think they were on verge of learning to drive in F1. I also think their crashing was a somewhat less than we've seen in some of the other young bloods.

 

[RasputinLives]

Actually the one thing you can give credit to JEV and Ricciardo is that neither of them have a rep for getting into silly accidents.

JEV is just crap at quali and Ricciardo tends to go backwards race wise.

 

[Slyboogy]

Ditching the Buemster was the biggest mistake of Toro Rosso's life.

Any idiot can see that they're bringing their drivers in too early, soon as they look like progressing the new batch are ready, and so the cycle continues until another 20 years when a golden child pops out and repays them back, and so on.

 

[Il_leone]

@Jos the Boss try telling that to Helmut Marko

Algarsuari improved but unfortunately he got screwed

Ricciardo was this hot shoe they kept raving about and Vergne is suppose to be the best of the young guns from the Red Bull academy
- don't think either will get into Red Bull unless Kimi rejects the offer and Vettel leaves

 

[Galahad]

On the other hand, they don't want all their seats full of plodders when the next golden child comes along and not have room for him.

They're looking for drivers of world champion calibre so it's perfectly natural for them to dispense of 95%+ of those who come through, and some of those will probably be capable of winning a race or two with a fair wind. I'd be hard pressed to put Buemi in that category though.

 

[RasputinLives]

Interestingly since the arrival of Vergne and Ricciardo the Toro Rosso have only both finished in 18 Grand Prix and results wise its exactly 9 each for both Vergne and Ricciardo.

Despite Ricciardo get a whole load of praise this season he has in fact only beaten Vergne in the race on on occasion which was in China.

At this stage last year Ricciardo had only beaten Vergne in the race on one occasion as well but ended the season 8-6 up.

JEV is winning points wise 29 - 17 which is a pretty hefty amount.

Ricciardo has 8 points finises to JEVs 7.

Ricciardo is a massive 15 - 8 up on the quli head to head yet only 4-3 up this season so far.

No wonder Red Bull are struggling to decide between these two. If only they could have Ricciardo in quali and JEV in the race they'd have the perfect candidate to replace Mark Webber.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Ricciardo and Vergne really are opposites. On the track and off. JEV has no personality and Danny is positively bubbly.

If Jean-Eric gets his qualifying sorted he'll be in the prime position of moving up to Red Bull or keeping his seat at TR.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Is there any option allowing for a driver to keep his seat at TR? I thought that if they hadn't managed to get in the RBR team after two years they were out.

 

[KekeTheKing]

It should depend on who's coming up behind them. Obviously they like da Costa, but who else?

Verge is only just 23, Ricciardo will be 24 on July 1. Da Costa will be 22 in August, so by next year they'd be right where they are with JEV, with considerably less experience.

Probably all depends on Webber anyway.

 

[RasputinLives]

Sainz Jr looks like he has some skill and I'm sure the publicity behind his name would be a handy bonus for the brand.

 

[Bill Boddy]

KekeTheKing Vettel will be 26 years old on July 3rd so the Toro Rosso drivers are hardly youngsters. So unless they do something exceptional this year RBR will be looking for younger drivers than the current pairing.

 

[Slyboogy]

Alguersuari and Buemi were younger when they got dropped.

 

[Il_leone]

That depends on what Helmut is thinking obvious

so how is Helmut going to protect his golden boy Vettel for another couple of years then without upsetting him by putting his future successor in the same team to beat him then ?

RasputinLives

Interesting stat because it does seem Ricciardo gets a lot of hype and shows great speed but does not transcend this in the race

Whereas Vergne is supposedly the fastest of the brigade after Ricciardo in the academy but is poor in quali but seems to show himself well at tough driver circuits like Monaco and Montreal

Galahad

Red Bull can;t sack Webber because he negotiates with Dietrich on his contract otherwise Horner would have done it by now

They may not want plodders but not sure if the TR drivers would have done any better if Vettel is letting the team know he is the main man

 

[Galahad]

Other than Button, which world champion didn't look like they had something special about them after two full seasons in F1?

 

[RasputinLives]

Which is my queue to plug an old thread of mine.

http://cliptheapex.com/threads/world-champions-from-the-start.4367/

It was written the last time Toro Rosso kicked out both drivers and all the facts in it still stand. Both JEV and Ricciardo are fast approaching that 36 GP mark we'd set for world champions in it. Maldonado interestingly is currently sitting inside the future world champion stat zone......its a prediction not a science!

 

[KekeTheKing]

You have to wonder what the STR drivers could do if they were still able to use an RBR customer car. (a la Vettel)

JEV's P6 was their best result as a completely independent constructor.

 

[RasputinLives]

They'd get a lot better results than Vettel but it wouldn't mean much in comparrison as even if the 08 Toro Rosso was a Red Bull customer car it was the customer car of a team that wasn't even 5th best team on the grid rather than at the front so they'd be much better off.

Personally I think the 2011 was the most competitive car they've had since the team was formed.

 

[RasputinLives]

On the subject of Red Bulls youth programme a 17 year old Romanian named Robert Visoiu drove one of the Red Bull junior team (MW Arden) cars to a very impressive lights to flag victory in the sprint race of the GP3 race in Valencia on Sunday. His is the only one of the three Arden cars not in Red Bull colours but pretty sure being in the team means he is in the Red Bull programme at some level. Anyways the win was very impressive for a 17 year old and I'm pretty sure if he backs it up with a few more results over the next year or so we'll see him in a Toro Rosso.

 

[RasputinLives]

Sorry for the tripple post but it would appear Visoiu not running in Red Bull colours does mean he is the one driver in the MW Arden team who is not Red Bull backed. As he's made more of an impression than his two team mates so far then more fool them.

The full list of 'potential' Toro Rosso drivers can be found here

http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Red-Bull-Junior-Team-2013---About/001243182347821

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives

If Tom Blomqvist gets a run will they dress up in a plain white suit and a white helmut then