STR-Ferrari, RBR-Renault in '07

By Andrew Cutler
October 31 2006

Reports indicate that Red Bull has today officially announced the long anticipated news regarding which team gets to use which powerplant during the 2007 F1 season. As expected, the Renault engine will go to Red Bull Racing and the Ferrari enigne to Scuderia Toro Rosso.

The Red Bull Racing team had used Ferrari engines during the 2006 campaign, but lackluster results lead them to search for another option for next year. In September they announced the signing of a two year deal with Renault. However, intial reports indicated that Ferrari was opposed to having their engine deal transfered to the Toro Rosso team. Therefore, any formal announcement regarding the final destination of the two powerplants appearantly had to wait while back channel negotiations were conducted.

With that process now appearantly yeilding the desired results, both teams can face the off-season knowing which engines they will be using in 2007, and begin to plan accordingly.

During the 2006 season, STR used a rev-limited V10 Cosworth engine. As none of the current F1 teams showed any interest in using Cosworth powerplants for 2007, that marques name has disappeared from the grid, at least for the foreseeable future.