The lurking problem at Toro Rosso has surfaced at last. And it seems that it's not the drivers after all, although Franz Tost, co-owner of the team with Gerhard Berger, would disagree with me on that one. His statement, referring to the events of the European GP, that "Only the good drivers reached the finish line today" makes his opinion of Speed and Liuzzi quite clear.
Vitantonio Liuzzi dancing in the rain at the Nurburg
When Berger adds to the bad feeling by enthusing over Bourdais and Vettel and then saying, "In Formula One no-one should ever feel one hundred per cent secure," it becomes obvious that the blame for the team's poor performances is being laid squarely on the shoulders of its drivers. No matter that the car has been difficult from the start of the season, reliability has been awful and that Speed, in particular, has not retired through his own fault this year and has been competitive when given decent machinery; no, it's all his fault, according to Tost.
Having had enough of the cloud hanging over his head, Scott Speed has finally spoken about the problem. And, in making his feelings clear, he has made himself a prime target for early removal from the STR seat, although he no longer cares.
The whole sorry affair does show what has been wrong with STR all along, however: the managers have never been happy with their choice of drivers and this has prevented the team from gelling as it should. A basic rule for any F1 team must be that you do the best with what you've got and, even if you feel that you didn't manage to sign the best drivers in the off-season, you should work with the ones you have and get the best from them. Otherwise you are only handicapping the whole team with your dissatisfaction over something that can't be remedied.
Tost's misery is entirely of his own making anyway. Look at the way Speed and Liuzzi have functioned together - they are friends and never say a word against each other. How many team owners must wish that their drivers were as mature and resistant to destructive competition between themselves as these two have been? They have also been loyal to the team, refraining from making disparaging remarks about a chassis that has proved less than hoped for and reliability that has robbed them of decent finishes.
As for the STR drivers being fast enough, that is still a debatable issue, since there has been little to compare them with. The best we can do is to look at Red Bull, which runs an identical chassis, and see how they have fared. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the STR drivers have been very close to the performance of the Red Bull drivers and have even been ahead of one or other of them in some races. That must argue for the quality of Speed and Liuzzi in terms of sheer pace, surely.
But we must thank Tost for allowing us to clear up the matter of STR's dearth of results this season. It has not been the drivers, as so many have suspected; it's much more a matter of plain, old-fashioned, bad management.
Vitantonio Liuzzi dancing in the rain at the Nurburg
When Berger adds to the bad feeling by enthusing over Bourdais and Vettel and then saying, "In Formula One no-one should ever feel one hundred per cent secure," it becomes obvious that the blame for the team's poor performances is being laid squarely on the shoulders of its drivers. No matter that the car has been difficult from the start of the season, reliability has been awful and that Speed, in particular, has not retired through his own fault this year and has been competitive when given decent machinery; no, it's all his fault, according to Tost.
Having had enough of the cloud hanging over his head, Scott Speed has finally spoken about the problem. And, in making his feelings clear, he has made himself a prime target for early removal from the STR seat, although he no longer cares.
The whole sorry affair does show what has been wrong with STR all along, however: the managers have never been happy with their choice of drivers and this has prevented the team from gelling as it should. A basic rule for any F1 team must be that you do the best with what you've got and, even if you feel that you didn't manage to sign the best drivers in the off-season, you should work with the ones you have and get the best from them. Otherwise you are only handicapping the whole team with your dissatisfaction over something that can't be remedied.
Tost's misery is entirely of his own making anyway. Look at the way Speed and Liuzzi have functioned together - they are friends and never say a word against each other. How many team owners must wish that their drivers were as mature and resistant to destructive competition between themselves as these two have been? They have also been loyal to the team, refraining from making disparaging remarks about a chassis that has proved less than hoped for and reliability that has robbed them of decent finishes.
As for the STR drivers being fast enough, that is still a debatable issue, since there has been little to compare them with. The best we can do is to look at Red Bull, which runs an identical chassis, and see how they have fared. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the STR drivers have been very close to the performance of the Red Bull drivers and have even been ahead of one or other of them in some races. That must argue for the quality of Speed and Liuzzi in terms of sheer pace, surely.
But we must thank Tost for allowing us to clear up the matter of STR's dearth of results this season. It has not been the drivers, as so many have suspected; it's much more a matter of plain, old-fashioned, bad management.