Toro Rosso confirms Ascanelli departure

2012 F1 season

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Toro Rosso has officially confirmed technical director Giorgio Ascanelli has left the team.

Ascanelli has not been present at several recent races for Toro Rosso.

“I’ve enjoyed the past years working at Scuderia Toro Rosso,” said Ascanelli.

“It has been a very intense and interesting time, in which we had to manage the transition from a small team to a much larger one, and everybody has put a lot of effort to bring us where we are today. We have sown the seeds for a successful future and I think the team challenge is now to gain a stable presence in the upper mid-field and I wish all at Toro Rosso the very best for the future.”

Team principal Franz Tost said: “Over a period of almost five years, Giorgio has contributed positively to the development of our team.

“Especially in the difficult transition period from a simple racing team to a fully-fledged constructor he made an important contribution and his undoubted experience was very valuable to us. We would like to thank him for his efforts and wish him all the best for the future.”

Ascanelli has been tipped to return to Ferrari while former Sauber technical director James Key, who left the team in February, is expected to take his place at Toro Rosso.

2012 F1 season


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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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9 comments on “Toro Rosso confirms Ascanelli departure”

  1. I heard Ascanelli was once Sennas engineer.
    Is it true?

    1. I believe so

    2. @xjr15jaaag he was Senna`s, Piquet`s and Gerhard Berger….

    3. and Pat Fry was at Mclaren in the era. They were team mate at Benetton ehtier.

  2. I’m really curious what Key can do. He’s done a great job with Sauber and I wonder whether he’s capable of getting such relatively great results for another small team.

  3. That picture says it all: Ascanelli can only dream to be as brilliant as Newey. Personally i feel Torro Rosso have gone from stable midfield to being a backmarker over the last couple of years, with some good weekends, but not great. Hopefully the arrival of new people will give the team a performance boost and some fresh ideas of how to continue.

    1. That picture says it all: Ascanelli can only dream to be as brilliant as Newey

      this is a silly comparison Ascanelli was the racing engineer of Ayrton Senna ,Gerhard Berger & Nelson Piquet & he was team principle of Maserati Gt which won WDC with Alberto Bertolini
      every team has to make choices as a function of it’s needs & objectives & Torro Rosso is not the exception when they were a small team that was separated from Red Bull they needed Ascanelli’s experience to move on & now they want to be a strong Midfield team so they need maybe someone more creative so that’s why they named James Key

  4. so Pat Fry and him parter again?

  5. Hopefully Key can give them a bit of direction with their next car. It’s been hard to gauge them as a team this year with two complete F1 rookies but the car hasn’t really seemed on it. Given that their new car will use the same engine as Sauber we could be on for an interesting battle between the two teams next year.

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