SEPANG, Malaysia — Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz plans to sell the Toro Rosso team. He has denied such rumors for months, but now that the rules in 2010 will forbid customer cars it is no longer feasible for Red Bull to run two teams.
“He is prepared to run two teams as long as he can work in synergies and run two teams out of one technology centre,” said Gerhard Berger, who owns 50 percent of Toro Rosso. “From 2010, this is going to difficult. He says, ‘I am not going to be prepared to build and compete with two teams.’”
Mateschitz will only sell the team to someone who has the financial clout and desire to keep it secure and running in a proper manner.
Berger does not yet know if he will sell his 50 percent, but he does not have the money to buy the team.
“I have to see what is the right future,” Berger said. “Can we set goals and can we reach goals? Because the last thing I want is to just be in F-1 and running at the back around the circuit. But I am totally happy to fight with the team and to fight through and to look forward to good times.”
Unless the rules change, beginning in 2010 teams will have to be “constructors” and that means no more partnerships such as Super Aguri has with Honda and Toro Rosso with Red Bull. However, the future owners of such teams could contract with someone like Dallara to build the cars because the intellectual property rights would be exclusive to the team.
While McLaren basically believes F-1 should be about constructor teams, it was going to supply cars to Prodrive until the deal fell apart.
“The reality is we need to have a strong grid in F-1,” said McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh. “We need independent teams like Gerhard’s to survive. It is up to the bigger teams and to the automotive manufacturers and the FIA to work together to make sure that we have got a sport that can keep that many teams in it.”
Some sort of solution has to be found because the danger is that there will be fewer cars on the grid, and that is definitely something F-1 does not need.