“Significant improvement” needed at Toro Rosso

F1 Fanatic round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz says junior squad Toro Rosso must perform better next year.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Auto (FIA, PDF)

“Toro Rosso is still our rookie team and its goals differ from those of Red Bull Racing. But that’s not to say we’re happy with the development of the car. Significant improvements need to be found and are being called for.”

Osterreich GP 2013 auf dem Red Bull Ring? (Speed Week, German)

With the prospects of a return to Turkey diminishing speculation now surrounds whether the Red Bull Ring could fill the gap on the 2013 F1 calendar.

Why Sir Frank is Sir Frank… (Peter Windsor)

“Immediately following the first Colombian GP, Frank Williams had hot-footed it back to England, carrying with him the two March chassis as hand baggage (!) and with an order list from other drivers as long as your arm.”

Tweets

Comment of the day

@Prisoner-Monkeys was surprised to see the Circuit of the Americas passed over for the Formula One promotional trophy in favour of last year’s winners India:

For the past four years, the promoter’s trophy has been awarded to the event that joined the calendar that year. In 2008, Singapore won it. In 2009, it was Abu Dhabi. South Korea won in 2010, and India in 2011. In light of this trend, I thought that Austin would have won it, especially considering that they were actually able to have the circuit ready before the deadline of ninety days before the race – unlike Korea and India – and the way the event was a runaway success.

It’s strange, then, that India would win it again. I suppose politics played its part again – I have a difficult time accepting the idea that Austin fell out of favour because of the stop-work order and legal wrangling over the rights to the race – with the sport trying to tie itself further into India.
@Prisoner-Monkeys

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Myles Woerner!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Five years ago today Martin Brundle fired back at the FIA accusing them of “double standards” in their handling of spying cases involving McLaren and Renault and revealed they had complained about his commentary while he was at ITV:

Image © Red Bull/Getty images

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

21 comments on ““Significant improvement” needed at Toro Rosso”

  1. Maybe he can buy HRT now too.

  2. “Toro Rosso is still our rookie team and its goals differ from those of Red Bull Racing. But that’s not to say we’re happy with the development of the car. Significant improvements need to be found and are being called for.”

    Wasn’t improving Toro Rosso’s performances the enitre point of getting rid of Ascanelli and hiring Key?

    1. Wasn’t improving Toro Rosso’s performances the enitre point of getting rid of Ascanelli and hiring Key?

      Yes. He’s criticising the STR7, for which Ascanelli was responsible. He’s saying he expects a better performance from next year’s car.

  3. Really hoping the Oesterreichring gets the nod!

    1. I agree. Although the track is not as great as it was prior to the 1996 reconstruction, the scenery itself was fantastic.

  4. @Prisoner-Monkeys was surprised to see the Circuit of the Americas passed over for the Formula One promotional trophy in favour of last year’s winners India

    I think this most prestigious of awards lost all credibility when it was nonsensically given to South Korea in 2010! The only surprise for me is that they didn’t give it to Bahrain this time round…

  5. Both Turkey & France needs hug amount of government backing but Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz can help to finance Austria GP.

    1. He can, but in the SpeedWeek article, Helmut Marko said that the local government could fund the race.

      But according to Autosport’s article on the subject, Mateschitz is away on vacation, so maybe he is willing to fund the race, and Marko is just looking to save a few of his master’s Euros by spending someone else’s.

  6. But what will happen when Toro Rosso finally improves? The best they will ever finish is behind Red Bull and that has to be very demoralizing for every member of the team, they obviously want to win but it’s nigh on impossible to even improve constantly with rookies every two years.

    1. davidnotcoulthard
      9th December 2012, 8:15

      They can at least be proud of 2008….with Vettel on board….look at what happened at Monza and Brazil, and look at how the standing looked after Brazil ’08! Hmmm…

      Anyway, Some might prefer this kind of faenza over STR.

    2. With their resources, can they even hope to get onto the back of Red Bull?
      Without the Red Bull money, where would they actually be? Broke probably, and that is not going to get them anywhere.
      There is plenty of room for them to improve, they have been the back of the midfield for quite some time now. They need to mix it up with the Sauber’s and Force India’s more often.
      I don’t think that its the drivers that are holding them back, look at the drivers in the other cars around them. They aren’t the most experienced bunch either. First of all, I think Torro Rosso needs a car in which the drivers can really show what they are made from. If they are constantly hanging in the lonely gap above Caterham and below whoever is doing worst of the midfielders, then its hard to get wheel to wheel racing experience.

    3. I think their goal would be to have STR be competitive with the other midfielders. In a year like this one that means they don’t fight for the championship, but can fight for podiums or an odd race win.

      Having two Red Bull owned teams is bad for F1. I wonder how TR would do as an independent. RB should slowly spin them off, maybe leave a contract in place to feed one of the seats from RB’s young driver program.

      It seems like Toro Rosso’s habit of fielding two young, unbenchmarked drivers together hurts them. You never really know how good they are. Is it the car? Is it the driver? I think it also hurts them not to have their own brand and sponsor. It’s a waste of opportunity plus they have a conflict of interest with the sister team.

  7. So this will be Webber’s first year in a competitive car with no physical hindrance. Hope his recovery is swift and complete.

  8. Oh I see that Dietrich, just like Luca, thinks you can simply demand improvement and that it will happen as if by magic.

    What the hell does he mean by its “goals differ from Red Bull”? The goal of every team should be to finish in the highest possible position at every single race and win the championship.

    Are Torro Rosso just there as a youth program and to let Red Bull cruise past when required? The whole thing is really starting to stink. This is why two teams should not be owned by the same organisation.

    1. Imagine a football game where two teams in this kind of ownership arrangement meet in the League, Cup or whatever kind of game except random friendly match or similar.

      I mean, what Torro Rosso is doing would be equal to throwing a match, which is pretty much illegal.

      I don’t know if it would be allowed in any of the worlds top Leagues.

  9. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    9th December 2012, 15:04

    Red Bull owner urges TR to be a car that can take points out of direct RB rivals, a Sauber-like team. They don’t want a car that can be lapped, they need a car (and at least one driver) who can fight for victories if for any reasons the red bull can make it, like V3ttel did on his Monza rainy win.

    1. You can’t really compare 2008 with 2012 and 2013. The Red Bull in 2008 was a terrible car, so the target has to be try and get back to a Toro Rosso of 08 standard.

  10. Thanks for the birthday wishes, Keith! I look forward to it every year

  11. I can understand Red Bull’s thinking with Toro Rosso. They need them to be competitive if only for the extra revenue at the end of the year with the FOM payout.

Comments are closed.