Oliver WhiteToday’s post-race polling question centres around Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, and the fact that Dietrich Mateschitz has – or intends to – put the team up for sale next year. The reason for Mateschitz wanting to shed some financial weight is because of the supposed rule changes coming into play in 2010 which bans the use of customer chassis. This will mean STR won’t be able to use the Red Bull car anymore and will have to build their own at Faenza.
Obviously, not receiving hand-me-downs from Red Bull Racing will significantly increase the burdon on STR‘s bank account, which is clearly something Mateschitz doesn’t want. But, Sebastian Vettel has given the company it’s first pole position and grand prix win. And it wasn’t entirely fluked either. The weather helped, but sebastian qualified on a dry set up yesterday, and rarely put a foot wrong today. He beat Kovalainen fair and square on the race track, by twelve seconds. Webber, on the other hand and in the better funded car and with bags more experience, finished in, erm… eighth.
Scuderia Toro Rosso now lead Red Bull Racing in the championship, and although it is only one point, it is quite possibly the biggest point in the whole championship table right now. There was even a murmouring – no more, no less – that the customer chassis rule change could be changed slightly. Exactly how or why missed me at the time, but it isn’t impossible or unheard of for a planned ruling to be adjusted.
So, if you were the multi-billionaire Mateschitz, and you owned both RBR and STR, what would you do? Sell one, sell none or (just for the sake of completion and poetic license) sell both?
[poll id=”24″]
Vettel is really a great driver…The new Schummi!
This result should add a good few quid to the selling price if he does go through with it!!
i will sell red bull racing based on the fact they run on renault engines.
I’d sell Toro Rosso and swap the engines. Simple. 🙂
I would sell Toro Roso and sign a new agreement with Ferrari to supply engines in 09 to Red Bull. After all, SV will be at Red Bull next year.
Why does everyone assume that the Ferrari engine will continue to be more powerful than the Renault next year? Flavio has already voiced his objection to other teams using the “reliability” loophole to improve their engines and has been answered by a stony silence. It seems obvious to me that Renault would be fools not to take this as the go-ahead and to improve their engine accordingly.
Nothing stays still in F1 for long. Mateschitz knows this and will dump his share in STR as soon as he can find a buyer. That’s an “if” too – would you buy into a team that you know has to invest a mountain of money before it can compete in 2010? You can forget the Adrian Newey chassis too – it’s start from scratch time for STR…
You have to keep Red Bull because they have everything you need to run an F1 team. STR is incapable of developing a decent car so if you keep it you have to keep all of RBR’s facilities to make the car. It is a no brainer.
When RBR switched to Renault engines it seemed like the smart thing to do now it doesn’t. In a few months it could change again. But what is the point in having a better engine for the next three years when you don’t have the facilities to design, test and build a decent car. With STR you have just lost two of those years designing, building and understanding the facilities and hiring people. You would need to spend more money to get less performance.
I’d be tempted to swap Toro Rosso and Red Bull’s race staffs over, swap their engine contracts – and then sell Toro Rosso.
[Having waited long enough for Vettel to be part of Red Bull].