Surprise at Toro Rosso (From The Northern Echo)

Surprise at Toro Rosso

10:00am Thursday 15th December 2011 in Formula One

Toro Rosso have surprisingly cleared their decks ahead of the 2012 Formula One season by booting out Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari.

For the first time since the team's 2006 debut, Toro Rosso will start a campaign with an all-new line-up of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne - both products of the Red Bull Junior Driver programme.

After wielding the axe, team principal Franz Tost said: "Over the past year both Daniel and Jean-Eric have proved their worth and I expect them to make a significant contribution to the team's performance next year.

"Daniel has the benefit of having actually raced in grands prix for much of this year, while Jean-Eric proved he could adapt quickly to the demands of driving a Formula One car (in Friday testing).

"As they have both worked with the team and its engineers very recently, this should allow us to get up to speed right from the start of winter testing in a couple of months' time."

Explain away his shock decision, Tost added: "One has to remember when Toro Rosso was established in 2005, it was done so with the intention of providing a first step into Formula One for the youngsters in the Red Bull Junior Driver programme.

"It is therefore part of the team's culture to change its driver line-up from time to time in order to achieve this goal."