Toro Rosso Happy the Loeb Story Is Now Over

Scuderia Toro Rosso manager Franz Tost is relieved after the Sebastien Loeb drama finally ended prior to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Austrian boss insisted that Red Bull's marketing idea to put a world rally champion at the wheel of a Formula One car without any prior testing had little sporting sense, as Loeb would have probably made a fool out of himself during the season finale.

Well, he didn't quite put it like that, but he did say that the level of competition in Formula One this year is so high that a driver with no prior experience in the sport could certainly not keep the peace with the rest of the field. Not to mention the fact that Loeb's only experience with an open-wheeler this year was at the wheel of a GP2-spec machinery, prepared by David Price Racing.

“If Red Bull wanted something like that for marketing reasons, then it would of course have been done,” Tost was quoted as saying to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, while insisting that the pressure on Loeb's shoulders would have been enormous.

“The competition in formula one is higher than ever before. At worst, Loeb would have been between three and four seconds behind. He (Loeb) knows how to drive a car: you don't become rally world champion six times if you don't. But (in F1) the last second is the most difficult, which is something Valentino Rossi realised as well,” added the Austrian manager.

He also named some of the requirements a driver should fulfill in order to become competitive in the championship: at least 15,000 km of testing. Luca Badoer is the best example of someone getting behind the wheel of an F1 car for the first time (it was his first when driving the F60 for real, not in the simulator) and being plenty of seconds off the pace due to the lack of testing.