Scuderia Toro Rosso

2008 season

Sebastian Vettel leads Sébastien Bourdais at the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

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 with the team 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 tires 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.^[7]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.

Sébastien Bourdais and Felipe Massa battling for position early on in the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix. They later made contact, for which the Toro Rosso driver was penalised.

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.^[8]

With the 2008 Concorde Agreement outlawing customer cars from 2010 onwards, Dietrich Mateschitz has put the Toro Rosso team up for sale. He is aiming to secure a buyer by the end of 2009, with the team continuing in its present guise until then. No deal will be completed before the end of the 2008 season.^[9] With Vettel moving to Red Bull Racing ^[10] Sebastien Buemi and Sébastien Bourdais will lead 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.^[11]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 2008 season.^[11]

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).

(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)