Toro Rosso F1 team up for sale

Red Bull will sell their Toro Rosso Formula One team before 2010 because of a change in the Formula One regulations, co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz has confirmed.

"It is no big secret that we are putting the Toro Rosso team on the market," he told Swiss web site after last weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

"The regulations are being changed for 2010. By then there can be no more synergies in either the design or the construction of our Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams," he added.

"For that reason I see it as essential that we concentrate on one team. We will not be selling Toro Rosso during the 2008 season, but before 2010."

In the full interview printed in the Motorsport aktuell magazine, Mateschitz said the team would be put up for sale "in the autumn".

"We will only sell the team when we know that it is going to be in serious hands and that the new owners will continue to run it to the same quality standards," Mateschitz added.

"The cheapest thing you can do in Formula One is buy a team. It only gets expensive when you try to run one seriously."

Italian-based Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, are co-owned by Austrian energy drink billionaire Mateschitz and compatriot Gerhard Berger.

Mateschitz also owns the Red Bull Racing team and both teams' cars are designed by Red Bull Technology under the guidance of former McLaren technical director Adrian Newey.

While Toro Rosso use Ferrari [Images] engines, Red Bull are powered by Renault. But both teams share the same facilities at races and testing.

The 2010 rules will outlaw the use of so-called 'customer cars', where one team uses a chassis provided by another, and ensure that all teams entered in the constructors' championship build and design their own racers.

Honda-backed Super Aguri, who are using a modified version of Honda's 2007 car, have recently been sold to the British-based Magma Group and will also have to build their own car by 2010.

Toro Rosso opened the season with more points than Red Bull, with French rookie Sebastien Bourdais finishing seventh on his debut in Australia on Sunday. He is partnered by Germany's [Images] Sebastian Vettel this year.

Red Bull have Australian Mark Webber and Briton David Coulthard as their drivers.

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