Newsgroup: it.sport.formula1.moderato
Titolo: [ENG] The birth of the Red Bull Rookie Team

Source: 
grandprix.com
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns15692.html
This afternoon Paul Stoddart and Dietrich Mateschitz will complete the
deal they have agreed for the sale of Minardi to Red Bull GmbH. This will
bring to an end the Minardi story in F1, which dates back to 1976 when
Giancarlo Minardi's Scuderia Everest ran a Ferrari 312T as part of a
scheme to evaluate young Italian racing drivers for F1. It was a
short-lived experiment as Giancarlo Martini demolished the car on the
warm-up lap of the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. After that
Giancarlo Minardi concentrated on Formula 2 and in 1980 set up Minardi
and commissioned Giacomo Caliri to design an F2 chassis. The following
year Minardi driver Michele Alboreto won at Misano and Giancarlo Minardi
began to look at moving into F1 in 1984. A car was tested with an Alfa
Romeo turbo engine but eventually made its F1 debut with Cosworth power
in 1985. These were replaced by new turbo engines from Motori Moderni but
it was not until Minardi returned to Cosworth in 1988 that the team
scored its first point, thanks to Pierluigi Martini's efforts in Detroit.
A deal with Pirelli and some promising results resulted in a deal to use
Ferrari engines in 1991 but at the last minute Ferrari snatched Minardi's
Pioneer sponsorship and left the team short of money and by the end of
1993 the team was so weak that it was forced to merge with Scuderia
Italia in order to survive. Another breakthrough was a Mugen Honda engine
deal for 1995 but the Japanese company broke the contract and moved to
Ligier instead and Minardi was forced to abandon its legal action because
of financial pressures applied by Ligier owner Flavio Briatore. At the
end of 1996 the team was sold to a company controlled by Briatore, which
included Gabriele Rumi amongst the investors. Rumi defended Minardi's
interests when Briatore tried to sell the team to British American
Tobacco and in the end Briatore gave up and sold the team to Rumi. The
Fondmetal magnate could not fund the team properly on his own and after
losing a deal with Spanish telecom company Telefonica, he sold the team
to Paul Stoddart in January 2001. Four years later Stoddart has dug the
team out of debt but has been forced to sell, faced by the threat that
Red Bull would start its own team and thus force Minardi out of the top
10 in F1. That would kill the team as it relies heavily on TV money which
goes to only the top 10 teams.
Stoddart has managed to get Red Bull to agree to leave the team in Faenza
for at least two two years and possibly beyond but there is no doubt that
in the longer term the team will probably be moved somewhere else and
will almost certainly end up under the same roof as Red Bull Racing.
It has yet to be decided what the team will be called and who will run
the organisation but the latest whispers are that the team will be called
the Red Bull Rookie Team and will employ Scott Speed as one driver. The
identity of the other driver is apparently the source of some dispute at
the moment as Red Bull tries to work out what to do with its various
contracted drivers.
Copyright 1988-2005, Inside F1, Inc.
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io propongo di fare uno sciopero contro la Red Bull.....
non comprate piů l'energy drink.... forza minardi! :**(

 non comprate più l'energy drink.... forza minardi! :**(
La storia della Minardi è comunque finita da tempo, ossia da quando la
proprietà è passata in altre mani (ed altri stili) e Giancarlo si è
limitato ad un ruolo di indirizzo e consulenza. Non mi riferisco solo a
Stoddart, che è comunque un esempio eclatante.
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