Scott Speed is gone

[macdod]

Updated 4:00PM 7/24/2007
Toro Rosso have "supposedly" booted Scott Speed.
http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38951/

[Rosso]

Originally Posted by macdod

Toro Rosso have booted Scott Speed.
http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38951/

Looks like a Bourdais - Speed trade is in the works. Wonder if it will include an unnamed player to be named later?

[Jisu Kim]

Check out these articles from Autosport. Sounds grim.


Toro Rosso deny Speed's exit

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 13:19 GMT


Scuderia Toro Rosso team have denied reports that Scott Speed has been dismissed following the European Grand Prix.

The only American driver in Formula One hit out at Toro Rosso bosses Gerhard Berger and Franz Tost after the Nurburgring race, saying they wanted to get rid of him and teammate Tonio Liuzzi.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read the press and know that (team principal) Franz and (co-owner) Gerhard are pushing like hell to get rid of me and Tonio," Speed told the SpeedTV website.

Both Speed and Liuzzi skidded out of Sunday's race after only a couple of laps.

Berger said on Friday that Toro Rosso had an option on ChampCar champion Sebastien Bourdais for 2008.

On Tuesday, however, a Toro Rosso spokesperson denied reports that Speed had left the team, and said the American was still scheduled to test at Mugello on Wednesday and Thursday.

"There's no truth in that and Scott is also planned to be driving for our test in Mugello tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," she said.



Interview: Speed hits back

By Adam Cooper Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 17:23 GMT


Scott Speed is resigned to the idea that last weekend's European Grand Prix could be his final race for Scuderia Toro Rosso. In fact, he says, no amount of money would get him to work with his current team bosses in the future.

Speed was among several drivers who ended their races in the Nurburgring gravel trap last Sunday, but for the American, the consequences were to be rather more far reaching than for the others.

After he returned to the pits, the American was involved in an altercation with Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost. The American said nothing to the media at the time, but nevertheless the story subsequently emerged from other sources.

However, Tost played down the incident today in an interview with Blick newspaper, saying that he had merely touched Speed on the shoulder.

In response, Speed has now decided to break his silence and tell his side of the story. While on the way to a Mugello test, he spoke to Adam Cooper about what happened in Germany - and how it might impact on his future.

"Initially I didn't want to come out in the press and talk about this, because after the race Franz spent 15 minutes apologising for his behaviour, because it was clear to everyone that he was way out of line," Speed said this afternoon.

"But after coming out and denying this stuff, it's just another very dishonest thing that Franz or [team co-owner] Gerhard [Berger] have said in the media to damage me and [teammate] Tonio Liuzzi. And at this point, I've had enough.

"And I know that it's going to hurt Red Bull, and that's definitely not my intention, because Dietrich Mateschitz and Red Bull have been a huge support to me. They're the reasons I have achieved everything I have in motor racing.

"But Franz Tost in particular is out of control. The fact of the matter is when we left the pit wall, Franz was furious that I'd crashed in Turn 1, regardless of the fact that nearly every single driver behind [Jenson] Button did the exact same thing, including Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

"He (Tost) was furious that I crashed. When I asked him about the pitstop, he said 'it doesn't matter because you crashed', and he didn't want to hear any criticisms about what the team did. He was trying to blame me about the pitstop.

"After that I just turned away and walked towards the garage, and I guess he must have caught up behind me. When he reached me, he hit me in the middle of the back with a closed fist. Everyone in the team saw it.

"As I was leaving the garage he then followed me behind the partition, where none of the mechanics could see. He grabbed me from the front of my shirt, jerked me around, ripping a little bit my fire suit, and pushed me against the wall.

"After that my only response was to back up in the middle of the garage and ask him if he wanted to hit me in front of everyone else."

Q: So did anybody see what happened when he grabbed you?

Speed: "There were a couple of people who saw. He grabbed me right below the neck, on my fireproof t-shirt, and jerked me back and forth, let go, and then pushed me into the wall behind where the cars are. There were two team people there, and another person, who saw it."

Q: What happened next - is it true that you went to Gerhard and said something?

Speed: "Immediately after that situation, as you can imagine I was furious. I walked to the pit wall and wanted to inform everyone that this happened. So I looked at my team manager, the technical director, and Gerhard Berger, and told them that if my team chief ever touches me again, I'm going to knock him out.

"They said 'OK, let's try to calm this whole situation down'. I said fine, and I went back in my room [in the motorhome] and I stayed there until the end of the race. At which point, Gerhard and Franz both came back. Franz was calmed down and spent 15 minutes apologising for his behaviour."

Q: And that was the end of it, as far as you were concerned?

Speed: "Yeah. At that point I as well had a talk with Gerhard, and it was very clear that they have a different expectation of what they think is possible to do in the cars, and they are going to continue to point the finger at us drivers until they get the change that they want."

Q: And you haven't talked to them since Sunday?

Speed: "No, I haven't talked to anyone since Sunday."

Q: What are your thoughts about what happened in the race?

Speed: "In this situation, if you look at the facts of the race, the only mistake that was done was by the team in the pitstop. Because Scott and Tonio Liuzzi came from 18th and 19th to coming into the pits in sixth and seventh to change tyres.

"We came into the pitstop, and the mix-up was that I passed Tonio in the last sector, and it took the team one minute and five seconds of pitstop time to figure out how to change the tyres on the car. The same exact thing happened to Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, because Kimi missed the pit entry, and they were able to do a pit stop in 30 seconds.

"So the team made a huge mistake, and no one wants to take the blame for that. The fact of the matter is when I came around into Turn 1, there was no way I was going to stay on the track. I braked 300 metres before the corner, and I did not start slowing down until I hit the gravel.

"I was aquaplaning all the way down into the corner like nearly every single driver after Jenson. I can't say I made a mistake, because if I had to do the whole thing again, there was no possible way to realise that was going to happen.

"It's not just like going off the track a bit, it was like being in a place that was completely unsafe to drive. And after that incident they put the safety car out, and no other car went into Turn 1 at speed."

Q: Are you worried about your future with the team?

Speed: "To be honest, the only thing I'm worried about is my relationship with Red Bull, because obviously Franz Tost and Gerhard Berger have been pushing the same dishonesty to the media, and I'm worried that might have ruined my relationship with Red Bull.

"Because Red Bull has been amazing to me, and I think we fit together really good, and it's a shame to let these two people ruin the whole thing.

"As far as my future in F1 is concerned, you couldn't pay me enough money to race for those two people again. If it was with a different team, that would be great, but I would also like to do something else with Red Bull, even if it was outside F1. Like I said, my relationship with Red Bull has been fantastic."

Q: But do you anticipate that there might be a lot of stuff going on in the next week, and you'll end up not driving in Hungary?

Speed: "I think with these two, you never know. Everything that's ever happened in the press and the media has always been a surprise, because they do everything behind everyone else's back."

Q: And you're happy that all of this is on record?

Speed: "It's the truth, and at the end of the day, I think it's time it came out."

[Rosso]

Originally Posted by Jisu Kim

Check out these articles from Autosport. Sounds grim.


"After that I just turned away and walked towards the garage, and I guess he must have caught up behind me. When he reached me, he hit me in the middle of the back with a closed fist. Everyone in the team saw it.

"As I was leaving the garage he then followed me behind the partition, where none of the mechanics could see. He grabbed me from the front of my shirt, jerked me around, ripping a little bit my fire suit, and pushed me against the wall.

Hoo hoo. LOL, can you imagine the reaction of a young A.J. Foyt or Junior Johnson, or heck, ANYBODY from the fifties or sixties?

[wbs]

Yep, ol' Jean Behra got fired from Ferrari for decking his team boss in the pits after something went wrong with his car. The racing world had its priorities a little straighter back then.

'Course, not that I'd recommend that kind of behavior by a Skippy driver who's unhappy with his finishing position!

[StevieDe]

I'm amazed that Scott has lasted as long as he has with the Red Bull program without self-destructing.

From my brief dealings with him at SBRS Road America his tact and demeanor would make the Nascar Busch brothers appear humble and gentile.

Very little in the way of a filter in line before his well developed mouth. I fully understand the need for strong ego to succeed at the top level of this sport, but this guy's got enough for three people. Sadly, he is just not quite quick/smart enough to back it up.

Good luck to whichever team attempts to salvage this train wreck.

Evil Homer

[Rosso]

Originally Posted by StevieDe

I'm amazed that Scott has lasted as long as he has with the Red Bull program without self-destructing.

From my brief dealings with him at SBRS Road America his tact and demeanor would make the Nascar Busch brothers appear humble and gentile.

Evil Homer

Difficult to fathom how he could be immune to Sasquatch charm and wisdom?

On a serious note, what the heck does he bring to the table that makes him so valuable to Red Bull that they foot the bill for these escapades?

[jp56]

His ego far exceded his ability...I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did..

[John Greist]

Originally Posted by Rosso

Hoo hoo. LOL, can you imagine the reaction of a young A.J. Foyt or Junior Johnson, or heck, ANYBODY from the fifties or sixties?

What do you mean young A.J. Foyt? It wasn't long ago he decked Arie Lyendike in victory lane - and A.J. was wrong that time.

We were all young once. 1958 was A.J.'s first 500 - same year as the car in the Avatar.

[macdod]

Let me jump in here at the risk getting gang tackled.

Are you all suggesting that Tonio doesn't belong in F1 either?

Scott has had better performances then his teamate this year (passed Tonio in the rain at the Ring) and drove the wheels off the car in the rain at Monoco.

I realize I should be deferring to those with better credentials then myself but I don't agree about his driving. He may have a mouth (but then again not everybody is as professional as John Pew in a TV intereview), but as for his driving he's better than you guys are giving him credit for.

[Michael Edwards]

i did not care for Scott when he raced in the Skip Series as I found him arrogant and even rude to some degree. But after I came to know him in the Red Bull program, and especially after Carole got to know him while living in Europe near him, we found him to be a nice kid who viewed himself fortunate to have gotten some big opportunities in life and was trying to make the most of his chance. He expressed that he was not necessarily the quickest guy in America, but the one who was lucky to have a chance and was grateful,,,,on several occasions. I changed my assessment of him over time and hate to see what has happened. He is one who is above physical retailiation in my view and i suppose that is an asset.

[Gerardo]

Although Scott had some attitude issues when he raced with us, I had also seen his good side, as Michael points out. I'll never forget when some other drivers said they didn't want to go have dinner with Scott, but then I'd scratch my head wondering why, as just an hour prior I had just had a fun chat with the lad. He was nice to me, and we respected each other all those years ago. I don't think people really know him, nor do they know how hard he has worked to be where he is today.

[wbs]

I'd agree with MacDod that his driving seems ok. He's had really bad luck this year. Of course in addition to regular bad racing luck which evens out over time, it seems that a lot of the unlucky incidents were due to poor judgment, such as when he got knocked out of the last race (BR) after leaving the door open too wide when he let Alonso lap him. It was kind of sad seeing someone get knocked out of the race as a result of heeding the blue flag. Any pro drivers out there have an opinion as to whether that was in any way a stupid move on his part?

I'd be happy to file any advice in my "lessons I didn't have to learn the hard way" file.

[dlippert]

Given that he tested with the team this week, perhaps the rumors of his demise are somewhat premature.

[macdod]

Yes, Dick thank you for you note. It would seem so.

My original posting was based on an ITV-F1 article citing sources from inside the team that Scott Speed was gone.

[Slowhands]

The Hamster vote is that Toro Rosso cars SUCK.

Scott's no David Coulthard (who apparently is telling anyone who cares, ie a segment of the population currently limited to his latest fiancee Karen, that he would be wiping the floor with Lewis had he a competitive car--yeah, right) but he'd be doing better in a real Italian car.

[robbyracenut]

Ok I'm going to preface this with:


I'd have to agree here... Toro Rosso is the perfect example of how a fundamentally well-designed car can be ruined by incompetent race engineers in terms of the race to race set up and by lazy mechanics in terms of race preparation. Given that the Toro Rossos are essentially Adrian Newey designed (reference the controversy earlier this year about customer cars and the fact that some of the technical drawings for parts of the Red Bull Racing/Toro Rosso car parts shared parts numbers), I find it hard to believe that one of the more insightful and talented designers has suddenly lost the thread. It seems much more likely that Adrian designed the cars to be run in a particular way in terms of the aero/mechanical grip balance as well as a particular way in terms of the differential preloading and slip ratios, only to find that the race engineers weren't capable of optimizing such a setup in the way that McLaren's vastly superior technical staff had been.

Adrian Newey has always produced complex cars, and perhaps this is exactly what RBR and Toro Rosso didn't need in their puerile stages as teams; a young team with relatively low (and here I stress the term relatively) level operating staff trying to deal with a car designed by one of the more experienced and subtle designers on the grid doesn't exactly seem like a match made in heaven to me. If one looks at the combined reliability record of Toro Rosso/Red Bull racing in the past couple years you'll see what I'm talking about. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on the teams here, but I haven't seen anything at all in my time watching these two teams that contradicts this opinion. (I'm going to show how obsessed I am here, so feel free to let loose on this one...) I've actually got HD video recordings of all of the races, almost all of the qualifying, and most of the practices from the past three seasons, and slowing the footage down to a couple frames per second playback is extremely instructive in terms of seeing what is actually happening in the cars through a given corner. The footage from ITV of Scott or Tonio trying to hustle around Monaco in any of the recent years is particularly instructive... They seem more like they are trying to "shout" the car into doing their bidding rather than working with a car set up to work with them around the track, which would be indicative of a car badly set up rather than a car that lacked the potential altogether. Reference Alonso's troubles in Montreal this year for what I'm referring to.

All of the above is nothing more than my opinion... But then again, I'm just a jaded ex-rally driver with a hankering to prove that us dirt junkies can make in on a track, so feel free to disregard.

[Rosso]

This just in...

Speed dropped in favour of Vettel

Tuesday 31st July 2007


Scott Speed has been axed by the Toro Rosso team and will be replaced by Sebastian Vettel for the remaining seven races of the season.

Following his physical altercation with team boss Franz Tost in the immediate aftermath of his European GP retirement, it appeared to be only a matter of time before Speed was given that chop.

That, though, looked to be on hold as the American then tested with his team at Mugello last week.

However, the announcement finally came on Tuesday morning, with Toro Rosso also revealing that BMW test driver Vettel would replace the America.

"Scuderia Toro Rosso announces that as from the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel will replace Scott Speed as the driver of car number 19," the team said in a statement.

"Vettel will drive for the team in all the remaining rounds of the 2007 FIA Formula 1 World Championship."

BMW team boss Mario Theissen wished his former test driver well for his future with Toro Rosso. "As our test and reserve driver Sebastian has carried out sterling work for us," he said.

"When he stood in for Robert Kubica in the USA Grand Prix he made history by becoming the youngest debutant to earn a World Championship point. However, the current testing rules mean that he barely gets a chance to drive for us.

"Now he has been offered the opportunity to get inside a Toro Rosso cockpit. We have sponsored and coached Sebastian over a number of years. To place obstacles in his career path now would go against our concept of talent promotion."

Timo Glock, BMW's second tester, will take over Vettel's role at the German team.

[Rosso]

Originally Posted by robbyracenut

Ok I'm going to preface this with:


... the perfect example of how a fundamentally well-designed car can be ruined by incompetent race engineers in terms of the race to race set up and by lazy mechanics...

Let's see now, just which engineer parked the car in the kitty-liter last time out?

[Rosso]

Originally Posted by Rosso

Looks like a Bourdais - Speed trade is in the works. Wonder if it will include an unnamed player to be named later?

The other shoe drops:

Toro Rosso confirm Bourdais for 2008

Friday 10th August 2007


Toro Rosso have finally secured the services of Sebastien Bourdais for the 2008 season, signally the end of Tonio Liuzzi's STR career.


Having dropped Scott Speed in favour of Sebastian Vettel prior to the Hungarian GP, Toro Rosso then went on to announce that Vettel would be remaining with them long-term.

That means it is most likely Liuzzi who will have to make way for Bourdais when he arrives in early December.

But while Speed was axed prior to the Hungarian GP, Liuzzi will at least see out the season before he is replaced by triple Champ Car Champion Bourdais.


And the Italian isn't exactly surprised by the news.


"I expected it because the situation inside the team had long worsened," he told the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper.


Liuzzi, though, remains hopeful that he will still be in Formula One next season as he says there are other teams he has been talking with.


"My priority is to stay in F1, which is what I dreamt of as a child," Liuzzi said. "I'm in contact with two other teams, otherwise I'll aim to race in America."

[Dark Horse]

This from autosport.com: it looks like Scott is for sure going NASCAR...
Speed to race ARCA at Talladega

By Jonathan Noble

Friday, September 21st 2007, 07:01 GMT

Former Formula One driver Scott Speed will move a step closer making the switch to NASCAR when he takes part in an ARCA race at Talladega next month.
The American has been without a drive since being dropped by Scuderia Toro Rosso after the European Grand Prix.
But sponsor Red Bull has vowed to help find him a NASCAR ride, and he will join Eddie Sharp Racing in the October 5 event.
Speaking about the challenge, Speed said: "I come from a completely different world of racing, so there's no doubt it's going to be a challenge learning how these cars handle, but I'm ready to get out there and see what I've got."