JUNE 13, 2006

A quiet little meeting at Silverstone

Paolo Martinelli is the man in charge of all things related to engines at Ferrari and so it would not be that odd to see him at the Red Bull Energy Station at Silverstone. The interesting thing, however, was that Martinelli was not having meetings with Adrian Newey or Christian Horner but rather with the boss of Scuderia Toro Rosso, Gerhard Berger. The meeting will add fuel to the rumours that Toro Rosso will be using Ferrari engines next year. The team will almost certainly follow this year's trend of using the old Red Bull chassis as the basis for their chassis. A little development work here and there and the chassis being manufactured in a different factory and teams can apparently get away with this sort of thing. In 2008 it will be completely legal to buy and sell chassis and engines so there is not likely to be much of a fuss in 2007. Midland complained about Red Bull's moves this year but no-one seemed to care and we would expect to see the team deciding that if one cannot beat the opposition one should join them.

The current logic is that Red Bull Racing will switch to Cosworth engines with a completely new RB3, designed by Adrian Newey and his team.