Scuderia Toro Rosso S.p.A. (, commonly known as Toro Rosso or by its abbreviation STR, was an Italian Formula One constructor. It was one of two Formula One constructors owned by Austrian conglomerate company Red Bull, the other being Red Bull Racing. Toro Rosso functioned as a junior team to Red Bull Racing, with the aim of developing the skills of promising drivers for the senior team. The constructor made its racing début in the season, moving to complete independence from its sister team in . The team changed its name to Scuderia AlphaTauri in to promote parent company Red Bull's fashion label of the same name.
The team was established after Paul Stoddart sold his remaining interest in the Minardi team at the end of 2005 to Red Bull's owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, and Minardi was renamed Toro Rosso.
Mateschitz subsequently struck a 50/50 joint-ownership deal with former Formula One 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.
From to , Toro Rosso used Ferrari V8 engines, taking over the contract that their senior team broke from at the end of 2006 to switch engine builders to Renault. For , Toro Rosso switched to Renault engines as well, but in returned to using Ferrari power. However, they switched back to Renault in (albeit under 'Toro Rosso' branding), then in to Honda. The team principal was Franz Tost, formerly of BMW's motor sport division.
Vitantonio Liuzzi scored the team's first point in its first season at the 2006 United States Grand Prix. The team's first podium and only pole position and victory were scored by Sebastian Vettel at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen became the youngest driver to compete in Formula One, at 17 years and 166 days old, in a Toro Rosso at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix.
Origins
Minardi had competed in Formula One from 1985 to 2005. Despite having a large fan base, it had been one of the least competitive teams in the sport, never achieving a podium finish and only finishing as high as fourth in three races.
Minardi 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.Irvine in talks over Minardi sale news.bbc.co.uk . Retrieved 2 August 2006. Included in the terms of the deal with Red Bull GmbH was the clause that the team must keep its headquarters in Faenza, Italy until at least the season.
Whilst Red Bull abandoned the Minardi name in line with their own sponsorship and marketing plans, the use of the Italian language in the name was 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' (team Red Bull) but then changed because squadra in Italian depicts a 'squad' like a football team, to 'Scuderia Toro Rosso'. Scuderia is Italian for a stable reserved for racing horses, and is also commonly applied to Italian motor racing teams, such as Ferrari.
Many Minardi fans were upset by the name change to Scuderia Toro Rosso and over 15,000 signed an online petition to keep the Minardi name, but were unsuccessful.
Racing history Cosworth customer engines (2006)
Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were the 2006 race drivers of the STR1, 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, with Toro Rosso inheriting the rights after Jaguar Racing was sold.
The team used Minardi's contracted supply of rev limited and air restricted 2005-spec Cosworth TJ2005-2 3.0-litre V10 engines instead of newly built Cosworth CA2006 2.4-litre V8 engines as CA2006 V8 naturally-aspirated engines were too expensive for smaller teams as well as transmission package from Red Bull Technology. 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.Press Information – FIA Formula One World Championship 22 October 2004 www.fia.com. Retrieved 26 April 2006. 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. For tyre suppliers, Toro Rosso was reunited with Michelin tyres who had last supplied Faenza-based Minardi in the 2001 and 2002 seasons.
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 to balance the playing field, Toro Rosso asked for an extra 500 rpm for qualifying, however the FIA permitted them only 300 rpm.
Ferrari customer engines – first spell (2007–2013) 2007
For the 2007 season, Toro Rosso began using the 2006-specification Ferrari 056 V8 engine rather than 2007 works spec due to cost reasons, taking over the contract that their senior team broke from by switching to customer Renault power.
At the launch of the STR2 on 13 February, Toro Rosso confirmed Liuzzi as a 2007 driver. In testing in Bahrain on 24 February, Scott Speed was confirmed as the team's second driver. Four-time Champ Car champion Sébastien Bourdais was an occasional 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 , Speed was dropped under controversial circumstances and was replaced by BMW Sauber development driver Sebastian Vettel who was later confirmed for .
At 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 to that point. It was a marked improvement over the preceding , 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.
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.
2008
Scuderia Toro Rosso's drivers for 2008 were Sebastian Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais. The team continue to utilize 2007-spec Ferrari engines in 2008. Bourdais earned his first career points 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 Constructors' 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 both 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 Is Formula One's Youngest Winner " Reuters (15 September 2008) Retrieved on 16 September 2008. and also the first and only win for a Ferrari engine in a customer chassis. 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.
Vettel's performances earned him a place at the senior Red Bull team for 2009. However, his final drive for Toro Rosso saw him almost play a crucial role in the world championship decider in Brazil. In mixed conditions, Lewis Hamilton needed 5th place to clinch the championship, and was running in this position when he was overtaken by Vettel with two laps remaining. Unable to keep up, Hamilton dropped back, and only took the title when he and Vettel both overtook Timo Glock on the final lap.
In the end, Vettel scored 35 of the team's 39 points, and in doing so, helped Toro Rosso to actually outperform their senior Red Bull team for the first and only time in team history.
2009