Red Bull Unhappy with Villeneuve Signing

By Jamie Makin
September 17 2004

Peter Sauber may have delighted Jacques Villeneuve's worldwide legion of fans yesterday when he signed the former champ to a two-year contract, but he has reportedly aggravated primary sponsor Red Bull along the way.

Red Bull has been building a team of talented, young drivers from around the world over the last few years with the hopes of landing them drives in the top level Formula One series. Their latest protege, newly crowned F3000 champion Vitantonio Liuzzi, was believed to be the favorite to replace the Renault-bound Giancarlo Fisichella. Several weeks ago team scheduled a test for the Italian at the Jerez circuit to see if he was ready to make the step up to Formula One.

This test run was apparently jeopardized by Red Bull's displeasure, as they believed the test was to consider Liuzzi for a race seat next year. In the end, the test did go according to plan today. Liuzzi impressed the Sauber engineers with his quick adaptation to the car and his consistently improving lap times. At the end of the session he was just two seconds behind 7-time world champ Michael Schumacher, which is not a bad way to make an F1 debut.

The best deal Liuzzi can hope for from Sauber now is a testing role. The team has not traditionally employed a full-time test driver but with their push to advance the team forward it is conceivable they would consider such a role for 2005. Liuzzi has also been considered as a possible test driver for Ferrari or even a race driver for Jaguar/Ford. Red Bull has been wavering on whether to support Sauber or Jaguar this past year and should Liuzzi land a race drive with Jaguar it could jeopardize their 10-year partnership with Sauber. Red Bull funds account for about USD 20 million of the Swiss team's budget, so perhaps they should not have been so quick to pass Liuzzi over.

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