Scuderia Toro Rosso

Scuderia Toro Rosso (Italian for Team Red Bull) is one of two Formula One teams owned by Austrian beverage company Red Bull (the other is 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 is the sister team of Red Bull Racing, with the aim of developing the skills of promising drivers for the senior 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 and victory were scored by Sebastian Vettel at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix.

For the and  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. Its car, the STR4 was nearly identical to the Red Bull RB5, and both were designed by Adrian Newey.

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, following a series of poor performances and had scored only two points. Jaime Alguersuari took over Bourdais' seat at the, and kept the seat for the remaining part of the year. It has been confirmed that both Alguersuari and Buemi have been retained by the team for the 2010 season.

Origins
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.

2006 season
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.

2007 season
For the 2007 season, Toro Rosso began using the Ferrari 056 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, Gerhard Berger 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 unofficial 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.

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.

2008 season
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. 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.

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.

2009 season
With Vettel moving to Red Bull Racing 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 season. On the 16 July 2009, the team announced that Sébastien Bourdais' contract was to be terminated with immediate effect. On 20 July 2009, the team announced that Jaime Alguersuari will replace him as official driver from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards. 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 Scuderia Toro Rosso finishing last place in the championship after been over taken by Force India after their podium finish in the Belgium GP. However Toro Rosso's form picked up towards the end of the season with Sebastien Buemi going on to score points in the final two races. Jaime Alguersuari failed to score any points in the season.

2010
Scuderia Toro Rosso have confirmed that they will keep Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, in the hope of getting better results. On 22 January 2010, the signing of Alguersuari came as a surprise to many, as the team were expected to sign a more experienced driver.

Long-term future
With the 2008 Concorde Agreement outlawing customer cars from onwards, Dietrich Mateschitz put the Toro Rosso team up for sale in March 2008. He aimed to secure a buyer by the end of, while the team continued in its present guise until then. On 10 November 2009, Toro Rosso announced that Sebastien 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, Toro Rosso officially confirmed that Alguersuari would stay on for the 2010 season.

Sponsorship
Sports sponsorship is a major part of Red Bull's innovative 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.

Complete Formula One results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position) ≠The driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified, as he completed over 90% of the race distance.