A Victim of Its Own Success?
Many talented drivers have risen through the ranks of Red Bull's driver programmes — so many, in fact, that Red Bull did not have the space to bring all of their best drivers into Formula One. In the 2005 Formula One season the second Red Bull Racing seat was shared between Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi, with the drivers swapping between races. To further complicate matters, Scott Speed was vying for a place in Formula One but had to make do with being a non-racing third driver.
To solve this problem, in late 2005, Red Bull purchased the Minardi team to help promote more of its drivers into Formula One. Red Bull described the new outfit as a "Rookie Team", and renamed it as Scuderia Toro Rosso, Italian simply for "Team Red Bull". Liuzzi and Speed drove the cars for the 2006 and 2007 Formula One seasons. Sebastian Vettel replaced Speed permanently at Toro Rosso 3/4ths of the way through the 2007 season. Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais were the drivers for Toro Rosso in 2008. The team scored its first victory at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, with Vettel never leaving the first position during the race.
In 2009, Vettel moved from Toro Rosso to Red Bull's main team. He was succeeded at Scuderia Toro Rosso by Swiss driver Sebastian Buemi, also part of the Red Bull Junior Team.
Midway through 2009, the underperforming Bourdais was replaced by Jaime Alguersuari, another product of the Red Bull Junior Team, and his partnership with Buemi remained intact until the end of 2011.
This officiency of drivers and the lack of F1 capacity was again shown during the 2011 season when Red Bull essentially rented a seat at back markers Hispania Racing for their Australian junior and 2010 Formula Renault 3.5 season runner up Daniel Ricciardo for the last 11 races of the season.
Buemi and Alguersuari both were replaced at Toro Rosso for the 2012 Formula One season by Ricciardo and 2011 Formula Renault season runner up Jean-Eric Vergne, the duo have both retained their seat for the 2013 season.
Read more about this topic: Red Bull Junior Team
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