Jean-Eric Vergne is back in the running to keep his seat at Toro Rosso in 2015.
In August, the Faenza based team said the Frenchman would leave at the end of this season as it replaces him with teenage sensation Max Verstappen. But Verstappen’s scheduled 2015 teammate, Daniil Kvyat, has since been called up by Red Bull’s main team in the wake of Sebastian Vettel’s shock news at Suzuka a week ago.
Immediately, it was said that the latest cream of the energy drink company’s junior programme, Carlos Sainz jr, was the favourite to complete Toro Rosso’s revised 2015 lineup. But that would mean Toro Rosso enters the new season with a driver lineup whose combined age of an unprecedented 37, with a dubious tally of zero combined career grands prix.
Asked at Sochi if Sainz is still the frontrunner, team boss Franz Tost said: “There are also other drivers. “We have Jean-Eric Vergne, who is an experienced driver. “We have Carlos Sainz jr who is currently leading the 3.5 Renault championship, then we have Pierre Gasly (and) we have (Alex) Lynn. “Fortunately Red Bull has a lot of very fast, highly skilled drivers in the driver pool and within the next weeks, Red Bull will decide who will get this seat,” Tost added.
