DECEMBER 6, 2005

Scuderia Torro Rosso confirms Liuzzi and Speed

Tonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed will race for Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2006. Switzerland's Neel Jani will be the test driver. The news means that America will have its first fulltime F1 driver since Michael Andretti raced for McLaren back in 1993. The team has minimal racing experience in F1 with only Liuzzi having done four races but all three, despite their youth, have been active racers since their early teens.

All three drivers are members of the Red Bull Junior Team.

 

Great news! Now who is the Scuderia Torro Rosso team? Who did they buy?

Also.. he better get ready, I watched his last season in GP2...he needs some work.

 

any info on the drivers?

ive hurd of this scott speed guy

 

Starting March 12, 2006, Formula 1 fans will be getting a taste of Red Bull in Italian: in Bahrain the new Scuderia Toro Rosso is heading into its first season as the second team owned by the Red Bull company.

The decision to take over the former Minardi team came at Spa during the Belgian Grand Prix, making the real birthday of the new Scuderia November 1, 2005. On that date the takeover became official and at the same time the first personnel decision was made: 49-year-old Austrian Franz Tost will spearhead the team.

Tost has lots of motorsport experience and Formula 1 know-how to contribute to the new team: he was formerly a driver for Formula Ford and Formula 3 and, among his other jobs, manager at the Walter Lechner Racing School before moving in 1993 to the team of Willi Weber. He was the driving force behind Ralf Schumacher’s career in Japan, advancing with his protégé to Formula 1. Since June 2000 Tost has been track operation manager at BMW Motorsport.

In accordance with the regulations, the Scuderia Toro Rosso operates completely independently of Red Bull Racing and is also in a somewhat different position: it sees itself as a rookie team that will primarily provide opportunities for the up-and-coming talent from the Red Bull Junior Team to rise into the ranks of Formula 1. The question of the 2006 cockpit occupants for the team based at Faenza, Italy is not open any more, different from the name of the tire supplier. The Scuderia Toro Rosso’s cars are powered by a Cosworth V10 engine.

All the current news about the Scuderia can be found for now here at redbull.com. Before the end of the year it should also be available at www.scuderiatororosso.it.

 

Italian Formula 1 driver Tonio and American GP2 star Scott will race for the team, while 21-year-old Neel will be its test and reserve driver, performing Friday driving duties at each of the season’s races. All three drivers come from the Red Bull Junior Team.

Scott Speed is a 23-year-old Californian, who has been competing since 1993 and initially caused a stir in US race series such as the Barber Dodge National Championship and the Formula Mazda Championship. His Formula 1 career actually began in 2002, when he won the Red Bull American Driver Search, the selection programme for the next US star in Formula 1 initiated by Red Bull. Scott moved to Europe and would probably have joined motor sport’s premier league sooner, if he hadn’t been set back by a complicated intestinal ailment in 2003, which cost him nearly a year. But in 2004 Scott returned to the racing track with his accustomed power, and won two series of the entry-level Formula Renault, the German Championship and the European Cup. The super-talent from the US got his first taste of Formula 1 in 2005, as Friday driver for Red Bull Racing in Indianapolis, and was placed third overall in the newly-created GP2 series. In 2006 he will be the first American since Michael Andretti (back in 1993) to start in a Formula 1 race.

 

Good to hear. Sadly, I had a Red Bull & vodka hangover and missed tryouts.