Toro Rosso expects Alguersuari to shine
Date published : 24 Jul 2009 - 08:57:15
Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has hit back at critics who
say Jaime Alguersuari is too young to be in Formula 1.
Alguersuari is set to become the youngest driver to start an F1 race this
weekend, but his promotion into Toro Rosso has caused controversy, with Mark
Webber and Felipe Massa saying he should not have been given the chance yet.
However, Tost has jumped to Alguersuari's defence - and said he thinks the
youngster will have a bright future in F1 as he is groomed for eventual
promotion to Red Bull Racing.
"We expect him to be fast," said Tost. "We expect him to be a
very measured and highly-skilled driver. When Red Bull and respectively
Dietrich Mateschitz decided to run a second team, one of the main targets was
to give the young drivers, especially from the Red Bull young driver programme,
the chance to come into F1.
"And, when we decided to change the driver a couple of weeks ago, we
studied all the data of the young Red Bull drivers and the result was that
Jaime was the most experienced, the most successful and the most measured
drivers.
"And therefore we decided to run him. I am convinced that he will come
up with a good performance and that he will be successful."
Toro Rosso has not made any firm commitment about how long Alguersuari will
be in the car – but Tost said the faster he was the longer he would remain with
the team.
When asked by AUTOSPORT to clarify the length of Alguersuari's deal, Tost
said: "It is a very easy question. That is a decision of his right foot.
The faster he is, the longer he will be in the car with us. And let me tell you
it this way – he will be educated at Toro Rosso and then he goes to Red Bull
Racing because this is the target.
"I just want to add that I hear some people say he is not experienced
enough. It is always a difficult question to answer about when is a driver
experienced enough to come into F1. I can only say that Jaime has done so far
118 races. He won 17 races; he was 46 times on the podium.
"He won last year the British Formula 3 championship, and this year in
the World Series he is improving his performance race by race. Last weekend at
Le Mans he finished on
Saturday fourth and then on Sunday he was on the podium in third position. It
is quite a good basis to come into F1.
"Apart from this, as you know, the new regulations mean there is no
testing any more because of financial reasons, and therefore it is not easy to
bring in the new drivers into F1. You have to start them here, and I think he
has a good background and he is experienced enough to do a good job."
Tost also played down speculation that Sebastien Loeb had been in the frame
to replace Sebastien Bourdais in the second half of the season.
"Personally, I have not had any contact with Sebastien Loeb," he
explained. "The Loeb story is quite easy (to explain). Sebastien as you
know is working together with Red Bull.
"He is for me the best rally driver at this stage, and he did a really
good and impressive test last year with Red Bull Racing. I can only assume that
he was thinking that maybe if Bourdais is being replaced he could do some
races.
"But he is driving in the WRC and this [Loeb racing] was from Toro
Rosso's side never a plan. We are out with young drivers and therefore we
didn't negotiate or discuss this."
