“Toro Rosso was created to give young drivers a chance,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport yesterday. “Alguersuari and Buemi had that chance for three years and after that period it’s possible to evaluate a drivers’ development.

“We didn’t see in them any possibility of growth. Both are Grand Prix drivers, but for us that’s not enough. We want Grand Prix winners.”

Although a tough decision, you can see what he’s getting at.

Both drivers showed some signs of doing well, Alguersuari in particular seemed to be getting stronger in the second half of the season and put in some very strong drives, using the clever strategies devised by Giorgio Ascanelli, but the company has unlimited tools for measuring performance and progress and they could see that both didn’t have what it takes to become winners in the highly competitive environment of F1.

Much has been made by fans of the incident in Korea between Alguersuari and Marko as a reason for his demise, but it is surely an overall impression that he’s not a winner.

Buemi was always inconsistent, while Alguersuari was thrown into the fray very young, at the age of 19 and arguably didn’t have the experience or the knowledge to capitalise. Jenson Button knows about that having had a similar experience with Williams and Benetton/Renault when he started at just 20 years of age.

But I think Alguersuari’s biggest deficit, which would certainly be highlighted in an internal audit of progress when comparing him with the progress Sebastian Vettel made in the Toro Rosso “academy”, is a lack of intelligence, which is such a crucial factor in a top F1 driver.

Vettel is exceptionally bright, so the bar is high, but one heard noises last year from the team that Alguersuari perhaps lacked the intellect of a top driver.

Looking back on the December move to drop both in favour of Jean Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, although it seemed something of a shock at the time, Marko has a job to do and he took the view that his priority was the two promising young drivers ready to make the next move; Vergne and Ricciardo. Both of whom, incidentally, have more experience than Alguersuari had when he made the move to F1.

Whether they have the consistency, the intelligence and, above all, the speed to make it as Grand Prix winners, the next two years will tell us, as that is how long they need to be given to prove themselves.

Perhaps Red Bull and Marko have realised that throwing a driver in too young is a mistake, one for which Alguersuari is now paying the price.

But the point to remember about the Red Bull way of grooming drivers is that what they give them – by funding top drives on the ladder to F1 and then a couple of seasons with Toro Rosso, is an opportunity and it is up to the drivers to grab that opportunity and prove themselves.

None of them gets being paid very much, but arguably it is costing Red Bull around €4 million per driver to get them to F1 and then the Toro Rosso budget will be another €70-80m a year, the purpose being largely to develop them as drivers.

Without the Red Bull investment most of them wouldn’t get that chance. So it’s tough, but you can see the thinking there.

It would make sense for him also to fulfil a similar role for Toro Rosso as he will be at the races, knows the team and it’s highly unlikely that both teams would find themselves a driver short at the same time. But that is not part of today’s announcement.

Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were both dropped by the Red Bull owned Toro Rosso team before Christmas, but the Swiss driver has a lifeline with this deal which will keep him working in F1 at least.

This is a well-trodden path for drivers; it can lead to a route back to an F1 race seat; Alex Wurz did a similar deal with Williams in 2006 and ended up being given a season of racing in 2007. But back in those days the test driver actually got many opportunities to drive a car on the track.

Today there are few chances with only three pre-season tests – one in Jerez and two in Barcelona and then a new three day test in May in Mugello.

The race drivers will want maximum time in the car pre-season, with the plan believed to be that Webber will go out first in the RB8 at Jerez on day one and Vettel will take the second and third days.

That said, Red Bull don’t have any obvious stand out drivers coming up behind Jean Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, who took the seats at Toro Rosso. So in the event that Mark Webber stops racing at the end of 2012, or moves teams, Buemi may be hoping that there might be a chance of a seat back at Toro Rosso, if either Vergne or Ricciardo gets promoted.

“It’s good to remain with Red Bull for another year and have this opportunity with the World Championship-winning team,” said Buemi.

“I would prefer to be driving at the races of course, but working with Red Bull Racing on the development of their car and providing them with feedback throughout the season is the next best thing.”

After a simple statement yesterday thanking them for their efforts and wishing them well in future, team boss Franz Tost has acknowledged that the decision looks “harsh” and found it necessary to go further today and explain in more detail why the team let the two drivers go,

“Sébastien has been with us for three seasons and Jaime for two and a half. Both of them worked hard for the team, doing their very best and achieving some good results,” he said. “However, Scuderia Toro Rosso’s ethos has always been that of the ‘rookie training school’ and, with over two seasons under your belt, you are no longer a rookie,” he said.

“In an ideal world, drivers would move from Scuderia Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing, but there are no vacancies with our sister team right now. It might be seen as a harsh decision, but Formula 1 is a tough environment and Toro Rosso has always been very clear about the principles behind its driver choice.”

Alguersuari said that he was surprised because he thought he’d had a conversation with Tost and with Dr Helmut Marko, who wields power over the young drivers in the Red Bull stable and they had said he was in their plans. But a decision was taken on Tuesday to sweep out the driver and to give Dan Ricciardo and Jean Eric Vergne their heads,

“Today’s news seems to be a major misunderstanding in the best moment of my sporting life,” said 21 year old Alguersuari.

“I will not judge the decision because since 15 years old Red Bull gave me everything. Second, I am not a victim because for seven years I have enjoyed the privilege because of them. And third, there is no drama, because I have many plans for the present and the future.

“The surprise lasted for a couple of hours but I have talked to my family and realised that life is full of opportunities and challenges.”

Alguersuari Sr is a powerful figure in Spanish motorsport and will be working hard behind the scenes to secure his son a seat, possibly at the Spanish owned HRT team. It would seem a very logical move unless HRT has a pay driver in mind or another driver with key strategic reasons behind his hiring.

Buemi meanwhile said he was in the simulator at Red Bull when he took the fateful call telling him he no longer had a race seat,

“I fell from the sky!” he said of his shock at the news. “A few days earlier, I had been discussing things for the next season. I was in the simulator yesterday morning at Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes, where Franz and Helmut called me…

“Obviously I’m disappointed, but it is their decision and I respect it. I have not forgotten that without them I would never have come this far, they helped me tremendously for a long time, almost since my debut in Formula BMW, then F3, GP2 and F1.”

What can we learn from this episode? Well clearly Marko and Tost are comfortable with making ruthless decisions. F1 is a very tough place to work, whatever job you do and you have to be strong to survive. There is something pretty brutal about playing with young people’s lives, but on the flipside of that the company has created the opportunities in the first place, as the drivers are quick to acknowledge. It is therefore, quite literally, “Sink or Swim.”

There is a reason behind what appears a sudden change of heart, but it takes on a different complexion if the management had led the drivers to believe that they had a chance for 2012, then cut them loose.

To some in F1 the decision was obvious – Alguersuari and Buemi had had their chance and failed to impress.

However to one or two engineers from midfield rival teams I’ve spoken to there is surprise that STR didn’t keep one of the drivers and there is a feeling they’ve made a backwards step. It takes time for rookies to find their feet in F1 especially in midfield teams with limited resources and this could help their rivals.

That said, both Ricciardo and Vergne showed in the Young Guns tests of 2010 and 2011 in the Red Bull car that they are very fast.

Vergne has been pushed very hard by Red Bull recently. There is likely to be a commercial dimension to this as far as France is concerned as the brand is playing catch up having been banned their for 12 years before the Austrian company successfully overturned the ban in the European Court in 2008.

But Alguersuari stands as a cautionary tale, for Vergne in particular, that you can bring a young driver into F1 too quickly and burn him out before he really gets going. Both Vergne and Ricciardo will look at what’s happened to this year’s drivers and be aware it could happen to them.F1 is a tough environment, as Tost says, but young drivers need to be managed to help them make the grade when they get their chance.

Romain Grosjean was on the scrap heap after coming in half-cocked with Renault in 2009, but has regrouped and returned with Lotus Renault.

Now Alguersuari and Buemi need a lifeline too.

The programme is overseen by Dr Helmut Marko and he has made a tough decision here, clearing out Buemi and Alguersuari and bringing in new blood.

The decision is something of a shock, given that Alguersuari, who is still only 21, had appeared to be getting a lot stronger in the second half of the season and outpointed Buemi. The Toro Rosso announcement did not make it clear what the next step might be for the two outcasts, whether one of them might be given an opportunity as 3rd driver at Red Bull for example, but the subtext of the announcement is that the Red Bull group doesn’t believe that either of them are the right men to progress up the ladder to race long term alongside Sebastian Vettel.

It’s a fantastic opportunity meanwhile for the two youngsters, both of whom look fast. Vergne becomes the third French driver on the grid next year. He has had very little time in an F1 car, while Ricciardo was farmed out to HRT and got on top of Tonio Liuzzi. Having a rookie and a virtual rookie in the car will make life tricky for the engineers, but veteran Giorgio Ascanelli has shown that he can make it work with whatever he is given.

Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost said, “Over the past year, both Daniel and Jean-Eric have proved their worth and I expect them to make a significant contribution to the team’s performance next year. Daniel has the benefit of having actually raced in Grands Prix for much of this year, while Jean-Eric proved he could adapt quickly to the demands of driving a Formula 1 car. As they have both worked with the team and its engineers very recently, this should allow us to get up to speed right from the start of winter testing in a couple of months time.

“I must also thank Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for all their hard work over the past three seasons. They have delivered some excellent performances which have helped the team move forward and develop. We wish them well for the future.

“However, one has to remember that when Scuderia Toro Rosso was established in 2005, it was done so with the intention of providing a first step into Formula 1 for the youngsters in the Red Bull Junior Driver programme. It is therefore part of the team’s culture to change its driver line-up from time to time in order to achieve this goal.”

Alguersuari was as shocked as most observers to learn of his sacking but refused to stick the boot in to his former employers,

“I am very surprised by the decision,” he told Spain’s Marca. “Just a week ago I talked with Helmut Marko and Franz Tost and they told me they had plans for me in 2012.

“They did it with enthusiasm and showed a lot of confidence in me, they also asked me to be in Madrid on Monday for a day with CEPSA, where I talked about our F1 project in 2012.

“I will not judge the situation because I thought that they were crazy give me a debut in 2009 at 19 years and three months, without ever having completed a mile in F1 before. Today’s news seemed like the greatest misunderstanding during the best moment of my sporting life.”

Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastian Buemi both qualified in the top ten in India and Alguersuari raced strongly to another points finish. In the last five races the team has scored 29 points, while rivals Sauber in the same period have scored six and Force India 19.

Since Suzuka in particular the Toro Rosso has been making huge strides.

In Singapore the delta in qualifying from Toro Rosso to the pace setter Sebastian Vettel was 4 seconds equates to 4.1% of the lap time. In Japan where they tested the exhausts it was 3.1%, then in Korea it came down to 2.4% and in India it was 2%. Meanwhile Alguersuari drove away from Adrian Sutil in the middle stint of the race in India. So how have they done it?

They’ve done it with new aerodynamic parts like wings and floors, but particularly by getting the most from the exhaust blown diffuser in a very short space of time and this is where it gets interesting.

As I write the F1 commission meeting today is discussing among other things the degree of technical collaboration allowed between teams, it’s interesting to look at Toro Rosso, who are not allowed under the Concorde Agreement regulations to simply get a car or parts of one from sister team Red Bull.

But they are allowed to share ideas and rival teams believe that they have been getting advice on the key areas to focus on in developing the blown diffuser and this has given them a short cut to getting it right.

Most established teams now have some form of blown diffuser but it’s a fiendishly difficult thing to get right. Red Bull pioneered it with engine partner Renault last season but this season it has really come into its own and contributes a massive amount of downforce.

Even teams with huge resources like McLaren and Ferrari took their time to get it right, as you are groping around in the dark until you come across the secrets to making it work. For the midfield teams, where resources are more limited, this process can take even longer and some pointers in understanding the system and how to optimise it would save a lot of time and get quick results. Engineers say that you can go more quickly to the right answers.

This is fair enough and does not breach the current rules, but it’s a huge advantage. As to why Red Bull as a company might do it, the answer is money. The difference between 8th place, where Toro Rosso were and 6th place, which is within reach now in the final two races, is worth around €7 million.

But there is a wider game at play too, as Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has already hinted that he would consider selling a stake in Toro Rosso to the right partner. He has entered into an agreement with IPIC, the Abu Dhabi based investment company. Among other brands, IPIC owns CEPSA, the Spanish oil company and Falcon bank, which are now Toro Rosso sponsors. Such a positive growth curve in performance is bound to play well next week when the parties meet at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, if a partial sale is on the agenda.

Returning to the F1 commission meeting today, the nub of the issue is that grey and even incomplete areas were left in the rules on technology sharing in the last Concorde Agreement.

It is in the interests of the sport, the big teams and the small teams, for technology sharing like that between McLaren and Force India or Red Bull and Team Lotus. It brings the smaller teams up and makes the midfield really competitive.

For the next Concorde Agreement, due to start in 2013, all the stakeholders want clarification of how much Intellectual Property transfer should be allowed and how to regulate it. With a change of engine formula in 2014, manufacturers of powertrains will want to have a “works team” and then customer teams and it is the right moment to discuss how much further technology sharing goes in that relationship.

Inevitably among competitive people there is suspicion, but this is an area where the sport can easily sort that out, by learning from the defence industry, where there are strict protocols and guidelines in place for IP sharing and problems are avoided.

Speaking to L’Equipe he revealed that this weekend he will be “in the Red Bull simulator at Milton Keynes supporting Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber for the Singapore GP.”

Teams send all the data from the track in real time back to their factory bases and after the debriefs the engineers at the factory can run simulations trying different set ups. Having a driver able to test variations in the simulator can be useful in some situations and Vergne is using the experience to get up to speed in preparation for two important F1 appointments he has coming up.

Red Bull has one of the most advanced simulators of all the F1 teams. The key to being able to make use of a driver back at base to evolve set ups is having a good tyre model, which only the leading teams have.

In the same L’Equipe article he confirms that he will be driving the Toro Rosso on Friday mornings from Korea onwards. His World Series by Renault season will end the weekend before in Barcelona, the same weekend as the Japanese Grand Prix.

He also confirmed that he will drive the Red Bull car in the Young Guns test at Abu Dhabi in November, the opportunity Daniel Ricciardo took last year.

The burning question is what Red Bull and its young driver programme director Helmut Marko plans to do with his drivers. Ricciardo, who started the season doing Fridays for Toro Rosso, is now gaining some race experience at HRT and managed to outqualify team mate Tonio Liuzzi in Monza. He might reasonably expect to take one of the Toro Rosso seats next year, but maintains that he doesn’t know what he will be doing in 2012.

Vergne meanwhile is coming into the Toro Rosso set up and also pushing for an opportunity.

Meanwhile the ownership of Toro Rosso remains a talking point. Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz says emphatically today in an interview with the Financial Times Germany that the team is not for sale, but doesn’t rule out “partnerships”. He has entered into an agreement with IPIC, the Abu Dhabi based investment company. Among other brands, IPIC owns CEPSA, the Spanish oil company which is now a Toro Rosso sponsor.

Mateschitz makes clear that he wants to continue to own the Toro Rosso team as there are many benefits not least from a political point of view, but there are suggestions in the Singapore paddock that IPIC could take a minority shareholding in the team.

Mateschitz also makes clear that Red Bull Racing will remain exactly as it is now, a wholly owned part of Red Bull company.

All three are owned by Aabar, the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle which is also a shareholder in Daimler and in the Mercedes F1 team.

Its chairman Khadem Abdulla Al Qubaisi has been a regular recently at the side of Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost in the paddock and pit lane, promoting speculation that the team was being taken over. However this is not the case, nor is it moving to Yas Marina Circuit. Rather the team is expanding its factory at Faenza, Italy.

Moreover team sources suggest that a sale of the team is now less likely, rather than more likely.

Toro Rosso is owned by Dietrich Mateschitz, who also owns the Red Bull Racing team. Its purpose has been to train young drivers and to give him two votes rather than one in F1 political matters.

It has been an open secret for some time that the team has been available for sale, but with the influx of money from Abu Dhabi covering more of the costs, the thinking now is that it makes more sense for Mateschitz to hold onto the team.

Today it was also announced that Niki Lauda has become a brand ambassador for Aabar. The three times world champion, like Sir Jackie Stewart, is very visible at Grands Prix. Lauda has a role as pundit for German TV station RTL and gets many requests for a comment from other TV networks. His trademark cap therefore gets great visibility.

“This agreement demonstrates Aabar’s strong commitment to Formula One. We are proud to team up with one of the living legends of the sport, and we have no doubt that Niki Lauda will help to raise Aabar’s visibility worldwide.”

But from a race strategy point of view it was quite interesting. It was less frantic than some of the races we have experienced so far this year and, surprisingly, there was no safety car. As a result the teams had some time to consider their options during the race.

Many had planned to do the race on a two-stop strategy, which on paper was eight seconds faster than a three-stop, assuming you had a trouble-free run in traffic.

But then the conditions changed and race day turned out to be much hotter than the practice days. The track temperature on Sunday was about 20 degrees hotter than it was on Friday, which is why so many people opted to go conservative and followed a three-stop strategy in the race.

In passing it’s worth noting that in previous years with Bridgestone tyres, the Valencia track rubbered-in and lap times improved by about four seconds per lap between Friday morning practice and the start of qualifying on Saturday, but the feeling this year was that it was less with the Pirellis, probably closer to three seconds.

Also worth remembering is that Pirelli had brought the medium compound tyre to race for the first time and although it was tested in practice, no-one had any knowledge of how it would perform with the 47 degree track temperatures.

There are some interesting observations to make about the strategy battle between Red Bull and Ferrari, but also an opportunity to look at one or two drivers in the midfield who coped with change, did something different, and got a great result.

Alguersuari: A fabulous drive under extreme pressure
When he qualified in 18th place, down among the backmarkers for the third race in a row, Jaime Alguersuari knew that the vultures were circling on his career. With pressure on his seat from Toro Rosso test driver Daniel Ricciardo, Alguersuari was fighting for his future on Sunday afternoon. What he did was remarkable. No wonder he jumped into the harbour in celebration after the race!

Starting on a new set of soft tyres, he got a decent start, moving up to 17th place, then quickly dispatched Perez and Petrov, who had both started on the medium tyre. He was now behind team mate Buemi who had started one place ahead of him on the grid, so was making similar progress.

They gained places as Heidfeld, Barrichello and Sutil all pitted around laps 11 and 12. When Buemi pitted on lap 14 and Alguersuari continued, it was clear that Toro Rosso were splitting the strategies with the Spaniard going for two stops. He made his first stop on lap 19.

What made his race and gave him his ultimate result of eighth place was his 23-lap second stint on the soft tyre. Not only was the stint long – most teams couldn’t have got 23 laps out of the soft tyre – Alguersuari was able to lap at a similar speed to the Mercedes and Renault cars throughout the stint. This is the remarkable bit.

Alguersuari’s performance caught out most of the midfield teams, who didn’t expect him to be able to run so long and stay competitive. They couldn’t understand how he made the tyres last that long because the Toro Rosso was not considered to be particularly kind on its tyres, like for example the Sauber.

When his rivals made their third stops Alguersuari rose back up the order. He also did a great job to hold off Sutil in the closing laps. They were both on the medium tyre, having made their final pitstops within a lap of each other (42/43), yet Sutil couldn’t find a way past, even with DRS and a straightline speed advantage of 4 km/h.

Strategy battle at the front: Red Bull and Ferrari

While Sebastian Vettel had the whole thing covered and was able to maintain a slender lead, not overstressing the tyres at any stage, Mark Webber was locked in a battle with Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari.

Red Bull’s tactic was to pit earlier and try the undercut. There were three significant moments in the race which helped Alonso to take second place from Webber. The first was when he overtook team mate Felipe Massa at Turn 2 because that allowed him to run with Webber. If he’d been behind Massa, he would have found it difficult to pass because the double DRS activation wasn’t very effective in Valencia, particularly in the first stint.

After overtaking Webber on lap 21, Alonso allowed himself to be undercut at the second pitstop, by Red Bull making the first stop. He must have been worried about tyre wear, otherwise he should have come in earlier.

Ferrari was very cautious at the beginning of each of the soft tyre stints.
Alonso did not even accelerate at full speed out of the pit lane so that he would not overheat the surface of the tread on his outlap. He was very cautious about warming up the whole tyre, not just the tread surface.

Staying out on the option tyre for three laps after Webber had pitted for medium tyres on lap 42, again trying the undercut, worked out for Alonso. It was pretty obvious that a used option was going to be quicker than a new medium tyre – strategists could see that from looking at Kobayashi’s lap times on it. Alonso did enough in three laps to take the second place when he made his final stop.

The Ferrari was surprisingly fast on the medium tyre, having struggled on it in practice.

The UBS Strategy Report is prepared with input and data from strategists from the F1 teams. Thanks to them for their help.

RACE HISTORY GRAPH

LAP TIMES

“I think it is interesting as he (Ricciardo) gets to try different things on the car and at the end, still this year, I did not find the best way to improve the car, the performance, and am just still learning about the set-up, about the tyres, about so many things on the car,” said the Spaniard.

“It is interesting that he also gets to know the car, to try to improve things on the car. I think it is quite interesting and it makes things a bit easier, a bit faster. But still I am not 100 per cent happy with everything going on. I think Canada was very important for us and we are finding our way to the best performance.”

This is an interesting subject, as it is quiet common to see drivers getting a chance mid-season for various reasons; injury to a principal, or poor performance.

Still only 21 years old, Alguersuari had a decent result in Canada; eighth his career best in F1 and his first points of the season, but he has generally been outperformed by Sebastien Buemi. Canada was only his second points finish in his last 21 starts. He’s started 34 races in total and Hungary will be his second anniversary in F1.

However, he’s been vulnerable in qualifying and was eliminated in Q1 at the last 2 races, and was outqualified by both Lotuses in Monaco. He has only beaten Buemi in qualifying once but it was a significant one; 7th in China was Toro Rosso’s best qualifying performance of the season.

This year I think we will see a couple of new driver opportunities. I do think Ricciardo will get an outing and he deserves a chance to do a race weekend, but my understanding of the situation at Toro Rosso is that Sebastien Buemi is very close to Red Bull special adviser Helmut Marko and Alguersuari brings some money to the team. So finding a chance for Ricciardo isn’t as straightforward as it was when they moved Sebastien Bourdais or Scott Speed aside.

Meanwhile we have Nico Hulkenberg in a reserve driver role at Force India. Adrian Sutil is vulnerable there because of the criminal complaint against him which has been filed with the prosecutor in Munich over the night club glassing incident with Genii’s Eric Lux. Sutil insisted today that his seat is safe, but he’s not dealing well with rookie Paul di Resta’s pace in the sister car and Force India boss Vijay Mallya is being cagey about what he might do if Sutil is formally charged with grievous bodily harm.

Karun Chandhok is in the reserve role at Team Lotus and it will be interesting to see what happens for the Indian Grand Prix on October 30th. The temptation for an Asian team to run an Indian driver at that race will be very strong and if one of the race drivers had to make way one wonders if it might be Jarno Trulli who gave a very downbeat interview to Gazzetta dello Sport yesterday in which he said that if things don’t improve it would be better not to continue in F1.

“I’m not having a great time, ” said the 36 year old Italian. “The car isn’t aerodynamically efficient after a tough 2010 I thought we would be battling in the midfield, but we are still behind. Lotus is still gaining experience.”

Trulli said that the lack of precision in the steering is the main problem, he cannot feel the limit of the car, which hurts his qualifying pace mainly, which has always been his strong point.

He has the air of a driver reaching the end of his F1 career, “I’m used to fighting for podiums and wins. Like this it’s tough. I might look around outside F1. I’m not interested in Indycar, but maybe in Le Mans 24 hours.”

(Alguersuari photo: Darren Heath)

Probably the least talked about team in F1, I have to admit I’ve always found Toro Rosso a bit of an enigma. Why does Red Bull persist with owning a second team now that the rules prohibit the kind of chassis data exchange which used to make it a low overhead business and now that the main Red Bull team is competing at the highest level? Is there any scope for the team to grow and if so in what ways?

It has been for sale at various stages along the way and no doubt Red Bull would be willing to sell if the right kind of buyer came along to focus resources on Milton Keynes. The Toro Rosso team is well inside the limit for the Resource Restriction Agreement era, has reasonable facilities in Faenza, Italy and a wind tunnel in the UK. It’s not as attractive as Sauber, with its full scale wind tunnel and CFD facilities but it’s a proper racing team.

I can see why there were strong political reasons for the Red Bull team to buy the Minardi team from Paul Stoddart in 2005, it gave them a second vote and that proved important when it came to the teams’ vote on going to a single tyre supplier, which led to the departure of Michelin from F1. But the team doesn’t really feel like it has a sense of purpose or direction. It’s always in the shadow of the man Red Bull team and diverts resources away from it. Now the expansion of the grid with three new teams means that Red Bull’s share of the vote has been diluted to two of 12 votes

The model is based on young driver development – initially there was a push to develop a US driver, something both Red Bull and Formula 1 would dearly love. Scott Speed proved not to be the right guy and since then the team has developed Sebastian Vettel, now a world champion.

The 2010 season was Toro Rosso’s first year of making its own chassis and that inevitably came with a high price tag in terms of a learning experience. There were some scary moments, such as when Buemi’s wheels blew off under braking in China, but on the whole the team did a reasonable job given its resources. Engineering chief Giorgio Ascanelli oversaw the evolution of a car from the DNA of the previous year’s Red Bull, with a double diffuser, which became a blown diffuser in September, but never gained a raceable F Duct.

The year was very much one of making up the numbers for the team with Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari both having reasonable seasons, punctuated with the odd moment of brilliance and the odd howler, such as Buemi’s collision with Timo Glock in Korea.

Buemi had four points scoring finishes including an 8th in Montreal, while Alguersuari scored points three times, including a fighting drive to 9th in Abu Dhabi. It’s hard to evaluate how much of a success the season was for the team.

Alguersuari tended to qualify around P16/17 with an uplift towards the end of the year, including an impressive 11th on the grid in Singapore. Buemi was a place or two further ahead in general, but his performance tailed off in the final part of the season. Buemi started strongly, but the final third of the season saw the Spaniard getting the better of him to the point where some doubts were raised about whether he would keep his drive for next season.

With the next wave of young Red Bull talent coming through, led by Australian Daniel Ricciardo, the pressure is on Buemi and Alguersuari. Although the team confirmed both of them for 2011 during last season, the recent FIA entry list had TBA against both the teams’ race numbers. I think there’s a good chance we will see Ricciardo in one of the cars at some point in 2011.

Photos: Red Bull (top) & Darren Heath (Alguersuari)