Scuderia Toro Rosso

Racing history

Vitantonio Liuzzi at the 2006 Canadian Grand Prix.

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.^[3] 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.

Vitantonio Liuzzi driving for the team at the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix.

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.^[4] 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.^[5]

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 2008.^[6]

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.