Drivers Sacked

Oh dear. Scott Speed, the greatest American F1 driver of the past two years (barely beating out Marco Andretti) has been brutally sacked by the Scuderia Toro Rosso team. Scott had a physical altercation with team boss Franz Tost after retiring from the rainy European GP. Apparently that has not sat well with Red Bull and Mr. Speed has been replaced with German infant racer Sebastian Vettel. Rumor still has Sebastian Bourdais moving to the STR team, bringing with him his manager one Nicolas Todt, brother of Mr. Todt, the mousey, cagey, nail-biting president of Ferrarri.

Also sacked was a personal hero of mine, Tomas Enge. Enge would have been F3000 champion in 2002, beating Sebastian Bourdais, but was stripped of a race win after a positive drug test (for pot, no less!). Enge is a highly experienced driver, having raced 3 races with Prost F1 in 2001, GTS class winner at LeMans in 2003 with Prodrive in the Aston Martin DBR9, in the IRL with Panther, A1GP Czech Republic Team, and most recently, the Peterson/White Lightning Ferrarri F430 in the ALMS.

Tomas first got himself into trouble (again) at the ALMS race in Lime Rock a few weeks ago, when trying to pass one of the Risi Ferraris he ended up taking out all the Ferrarris in the race in one fell swoop. He was put on suspension and was under the microscope at the next race in Mid -Ohio. There he collided again with Risi's Mika Salo, while attempting to pass him after following him for a handful of laps, clearly faster. Salo came back at Enge in the next turn, deliberately spinning him off into the grass. Both drivers were penalized, Salo later calling Enge and "idiot" and saying he should be "banned" from the series on TV. Now, Enge is officially out of the Peterson/White Ligntning team, replaced by some loser who probably doesn't get stoned.

Video of the Enge/Salo incident can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bbwrEC4k-E