APRIL 10, 2007

Toro Rosso rumours

There have been a large number of different rumours about the future of Scuderia Toro Rosso with the Austrian media convinced that Dietrich Mateschitz will sell his share in the team. It is not really clear why that is a good idea because the team will be worth a great deal more once there is a new Concorde Agreement. At the moment the team is not worth much given that it is no longer designing its own cars. The rumours have been numerous and some of them rather colourful with one popular suggestion in Malaysia being that Alain Prost was behind a bid. There was also talk of a deal involving HWA, which is active in DTM and Formula 3 with Mercedes-Benz. The logic behind this is that HWA recently sold half of its shares to Monaco-based Austrian businessman Christian "Toto" Wolff and that Wolff thinks that he can make more money from HWA if the company expands in other areas. The most likely route for HWA is an engine supply deal in the US, probably with IRL, but an involvement in F1 is unlikely to help Wolff add to his fortune. There is little logic for a Prost deal (or Michael Schumacher for that matter) although the argument was that Alain Prost is looking for somewhere to park his son Nicolas when he moves up from Spanish Formula 3. The youngster needs to do a little more if he is going to attract the attention of the F1 teams as sixth place in a Campos Racing Dallara was not a very good start to the year given his experience.

Our sources suggest that Mateschitz will hold on to the team for a while yet, although he does want the operation to raise more funding. The onus therefore is on commercial supremo Jim Wright to come up with new cash.