Autoblog

We wish we could understand how Dietrich Mateschitz thinks, but we just can't. After years of sponsoring F1 teams, the Red Bull chief decides to buy one outright. That wasn't enough, so he buys a second one. Then he sells half of that team to former F1 driver (and fellow Austrian) Gerhard Berger. Then he says he wants to sell it off altogether, but instead he buys it back.

And so comes the announcement today that Mateschitz has re-acquired full stake in his B-squad, Scuderia Toro Rosso, which proved itself better than the A-squad by outperforming it all year and even winning a race. For next season, STR's wunderkind Sebastian Vettel is moving up to the Red Bull Racing main squad to replace the retired David Coulthard. The announcement for Sebastien Buemi to join STR in Vettel's seat is expected soon. Unless Mateschitz decides to buy something else.

[Source: Autosport]

Formula One fans and team members alike will be disappointed by reports that the Red Bulletin may be cancelled. The magazine is put out by Red Bull, owners of the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams, in four daily editions at each grand prix on the Formula One calendar. It has become a fixture of the paddock and grandstands since its introduction at Monaco in 2005.

The self-proclaimed "almost independent F1 newspaper" incorporates current news, interviews and feature articles in a humorous tone, and is distributed at the races free of charge in editions of up to 10,000 copies each. Unfortunately, it reportedly costs millions for Red Bull to produce, with a multilingual staff of 25 working out of a mobile publishing office with a Heidelberg 7.5t printing press. Although Red Bull will reportedly fund other publications, its grandiose parties and other expensive marketing initiatives are also tipped to be cut from the erstwhile seemingly endless cash-flow. We guess once they came down from their Taurine high, the bean-counters finally got their way.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

If you think you've got what it takes to be an F1 driver, you might want to grab a flight to Jerez, Spain, on the double, as Scuderia Toro Rosso bosses Gerhard Berger and Franz Tost have just landed there to evaluate new drivers for next year. Although they're clearly happy with the performance of Sebastian Vettel, who took a landmark victory at last weekend's Italian Grand Prix, the young German driver is being called up to the Red Bull senior team, leaving a vacant seat at STR.

Among the drivers Berger and Tost are evaluating are Honda-supported on-again-off-again F1 pilot Takuma Sato and the team's own reserve driver Sebastien Buemi, who just placed sixth in the GP2 Series. However Berger, himself a ten-time grand prix winner, says they won't make a final decision until November or December. With two-time world champion Fernando Alonso's future still up in the air, BMW's Nick Heidfeld, Honda's veteran Rubens Barrichello and Renault's Nelsinho Piquet could be up for grabs next season, making for enticing prospects to fill Vettel's vacancy after the team has shown considerable promise with last weekend's performance.

[Source: F1-Live, Photo by Peter Fox/Getty]

You'd think that the teams in Formula One would all be striving to eek out every little performance advantage they can, right? Well, not quite. It turns out that some of the teams are lobbying behind closed doors to equalize engine performance across the series.

The development has been prompted by Sebastian Vettel's landmark domination at this past weekend's Italian Grand Prix. The young German drives for Scuderia Toro Rosso, which essentially – and controversially – runs the same cars as the senior Red Bull Racing team, only with one major difference: the engine. While RBR uses Renault engines, STR is powered by Ferrari. And according to Red Bull chief Christian Horner, the performance advantage which Ferrari has cultivated over Renault is what allowed Vettel to beat out the Renault-powered Red Bull cars, to say nothing of the rest of the field. Horner insists that Renault has obeyed the engine development freeze currently in place, while Ferrari, BMW and McLaren partner Mercedes-Benz have taken advantage of loopholes that has allowed them to find as much as 30 extra horsepower. "We don't need an engine formula to completely open up," said Horner, "but there should be a parity as much as possible among the engine suppliers – otherwise we will all end up with one engine at the end of the day."

[Source: Autosport]

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2008 Italian Grand Prix

Racing fans are used to tuning in on the Saturday of a grand prix weekend to find the words "Scuderia" and "Ferrari" at the top of the qualifying list. But interrupted by the words "Toro Rosso"? Never. But that was only the first of many surprises at this weekend's Italian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel shockingly secured his first pole position thanks to some exceedingly brilliant driving joined with good strategy on the part of his Ferrari-powered Scuderia Toro Rosso team, which wisely stuck with the extreme wet tires on the rain-soaked Monza circuit while others experimented with intermediate treads. The young German's unprecedented qualifying performance put him in the record books as the youngest driver ever to secure a pole position, supplanting Fernando Alonso's previous record. But with so many other drivers with more experience and backed by teams with immensely bigger budgets, surely Vettel's lead would quickly be stolen by an established front-runner. Wouldn't it? Follow the jump to find out.

What a tangled web we weave. Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sebastian Vettel is one of the only drivers in Formula One who doesn't have a manager, and the rookie has no plans to change that despite an increasingly complicated entanglement of contracts between several teams now being reported in the motorsport media.

Vettel was a test driver for BMW Sauber the past two seasons before moving in to replace Scott Speed at the Red Bull b-squad last year, coming in an impressive fourth place at the Chinese Grand Prix. Reports suggest that Vettel is still contracted to both BMW and Red Bull, but that's not the end of it. Rumors are now circulating that he could be called up to Ferrari –Toro Rosso's engines supplier – next season. Although most reports are indicating Vettel could replace Felipe Massa, the more likely scenario could see Vettel move to Maranello as a third driver, sharing testing duties with Ferrari's two race drivers and acting as a back-up. Such an arrangement would be similar to the one that brought Massa to the team from Sauber, which was powered by Ferrari before BMW came into the picture. Meanwhile, Ferrari is tipped to have a clause that could put Vettel in a Ferrari in case either Raikkonen or Massa has to sit out a race this season, which in turn would leave Toro Rosso scrambling for a driver to fill Vettel's seat. If you're not thoroughly confused by now, you weren't paying attention.

[Sources: GrandPrix.com and F1-Live, Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty]

Super Aguri undergoing testing at Jerez

Well that didn't take long. After only two years on the grid, Super Aguri is up for sale. Unlike most of the other "new" teams that took over and rebranded themselves from previous teams, Super Aguri actually put up the bond to join the 2006 Formula One championship as an additional entry. Since then, however, the team has had difficulty putting together the enormous budget required of a modern F1 team, falling into debt to the tune of $47 million, despite getting support from Honda and running old cars.

Now, following the emergence of Force India and the confirmation of an Indian Grand Prix in two years, another Indian business consortium is looking at buying its way into the sport. The Spice Group telecommunications company, which already sponsors Indian former F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan's Team India A1GP car, is reported to be negotiating to acquire Super Aguri. Tata, which is inching closer to its acquisition of Land Rover and Jaguar (which itself once had its own F1 team), is reported to be possibly supporting the bid. The price: $1, plus the coverage of the team's debts. The deal hasn't been finalized, but would involve bringing Karthikeyan back to the grid, and leaving Aguri Suzuki in charge. Spice confirms that it is talking with Aguri and a second team. In related news, Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz has reiterated that Scuderia Toro Rosso is not for sale.

[Source: F1-Live, Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty]