Ferrari, in conjunction with Red Bull GmbH, has announced that it has negotiated a contractual agreement with Scuderia Toro Rosso to supply it with Formula 1 engines for a period of two years, starting from the 2007 season, with an option to extend this for one further championship year. At the same time, the existing engine supply agreement with Red Bull Racing, which was valid for next year, has been terminated by mutual consent.

In 2006, the Red Bull F1 outfit used Ferrari 2.4-litre V8 engines, but will change its powerplants to Renault units in 2007, when Australian Mark Webber will join the team from Williams. Webber will be paired with veteran English pilot David Coulthard, who will be starting his third straight year with the Milton Keynes-based team. By essentially ‘shifting’ their supply of Ferrari engines to Scuderia Toro Rosso, which it partly owns, Red Bull will be able to retain its powerplant contract with Maranello but effectively re-jig the arrangement. Energy drinks giant Red Bull acquired the Toro Rosso team at the end of the 2005 season, when it was known as the Minardi F1 team. After two decades, the small team founded by Giancarlo Minardi was renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso (‘Red Bull’ in Italian), and shortly after this purchase a 50% stake was sold to former F1 star Gerhard Berger.

“We are pleased to be embarking on a new long-term relationship with Scuderia Toro Rosso,” commented Ferrari C.E.O. and Gestione Sportiva Managing Director, Jean Todt this week after the announcement. “It will allow us to strengthen our ties with the world of Italian motor sport and also to work with a team run by Gerhard Berger, our former driver and friend of Ferrari.”
 

Such an arrangement has been in the works for some time, but an announcement has been delayed due to the necessity for Red Bull GmbH to reach an agreement with Ferrari, as Red Bull Racing was halfway through a specific two-year deal with Ferrari for the supply of engines. Red Bull Racing’s 2007 contender, the RBR3, will be penned by Adrian Newey, but it is expected that Toro Rosso will utilise the same chassis.

This year the Faenza-based squad was the only Grand Prix team to take up the FIA’s option of using rev-restricted versions of the outgoing 3.0-litre V10 engines, which were replaced in F1 for 2006 by a new generation of 2.4-litre V8 units. The Michelin-shod Toro Rosso STR1 cars were driven all season by two young drivers who are an integral part of Red Bull’s “staircase of talent”: Italian Tonio Liuzzi and American Scott Speed. Their only point of the season was claimed by Luzzi, who finished 8th in the United States Grand Prix. Liuzzi, who won the last ever International F3000 Championship in 2004, last year made four appearances in F1 driving for the sister Red Bull squad where he shared the seat with Christian Klein, and impressed in his first race at San Marino, joining an exclusive list of drivers who have scored world championship points on debut. Speed won Red Bull’s American “Driver Search” competition in 2002, going on to win the Formula Renault Germany and then Euro Supercup in 2004, before finishing third in GP2 a year later and being promoted to the Toro Rosso squad for 2006. Although an official announcement is yet to be made, both drivers are likely to be retained by the team for 2007.