Category | Formula One | ||||||||
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Constructor | Toro Rosso | ||||||||
Designer(s) |
Mark Smith (Red Bull RB1) Gabriele Tredozi |
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Successor | STR2 | ||||||||
Technical specifications | |||||||||
Chassis | Carbon-fibre monocoque | ||||||||
Suspension (front) | Cast titanium uprights, pushrods, carbon-fibre upper and lower wishbones | ||||||||
Suspension (rear) | As front | ||||||||
Engine | Cosworth TJ2005-2 V10 (90°) Normally aspirated (limited to 16,700/17,000 rpm) | ||||||||
Transmission | Red Bull seven-speed longitudinally-mounted with hydraulic shift and clutch operation | ||||||||
Weight | 600 kg (1,300 lb) including driver | ||||||||
Fuel | Castrol | ||||||||
Tyres | Michelin | ||||||||
Competition history | |||||||||
Notable entrants | Scuderia Toro Rosso | ||||||||
Notable drivers | 20. Vitantonio Liuzzi 21. Scott Speed |
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Debut | 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix | ||||||||
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The Scuderia Toro Rosso STR1 was the car with which the Scuderia Toro Rosso team competed in the 2006 Formula One season. It was driven by Vitantonio Liuzzi, who had started four Grands Prix for the sister Red Bull Racing team in 2005, and Scott Speed, a débutant who was the first American driver to compete in F1 since Michael Andretti in 1993. The STR1 was the first car from the Faenza-based team to use Michelin tyres since the Minardi PS02.
2006 marked a new beginning, as Red Bull had bought the Minardi team which had competed in F1 for twenty years and renamed it using the Italian translation of their brandname. The new team inherited Minardi's technical team and its factory at Faenza only, as ex-owner Paul Stoddart kept Minardi's other property in Ledbury. A deal which allowed the team to run restricted V10 engines, instead of V8s, was also maintained despite the new ownership.
This allowed Toro Rosso to use an almost identical version of the previous year's Red Bull RB1 coupled with the same Cosworth engines, only power-restricted under the FIA's equivalency formula. Both the chassis-sharing and V10 engine usage remained controversial topics throughout the season, as the engine agreement was designed to benefit the poor Minardi team, not the much richer Red Bull company. However, this wore off as the season progressed, as fears over the car's potential performance advantage proved to be unfounded.