Berger: money is not an issue

By Andrew Cutler
February 7 2007

The wait continues. Scuderia Toro Rosso is the only team without an "offically" announced driver line-up for 2007. While the safe bet still seems to be that Liuzzi and Speed will be back for a second year, nothing is certain until the paperwork is done.

Team co-owner Gerhard Berger is not yet ready to make anything official, allthough he still keeps hinting at Tonio and Scott returning to the Faenza outfit. "I think our two '06 drivers are in pole position. Most likely we are going this route, but it is not done yet," Berger told F1.com. "We are still working on our driver side. So far it was not the right time to make any announcement as we are in final discussions with our drivers. The moment we are ready, we will make it public."

In the absence of any announcement, several rumors about other drivers, some of whom could potentially bring alot of sponsorship money with them, have been in circulation over the past few months. For his part, Berger bristles at the notion that he is only looking for drivers with deep pockets. "We are trying to get the best guys in our cars. We are looking for performance. Money is more than welcomed, but on the other side we are totally performance orientated and it is the performance that will get a driver a cockpit and not a hand waving a cheque. If our main criteria were money, we would have done this already."

We can only wait to see how this all plays out.