Despite blaming
Scuderia Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger for forcing him out of the team at the end of last year, Vitantonio Liuzzi has refused to rule out the possibility of one day returning to the Red Bull fold.
The Italian has taken up the role of test driver for
Force India in 2008, after being replaced at
STR by multiple Champ Car king Sébastien Bourdais. He was forthright when making it clear that it had been Berger's doing to remove him from the team.
“He has never been a fan of mine,” Liuzzi said of the nine-time former grand prix winner when speaking to Italian magazine
Autosprint, “just like Adrian Newey, who in the past blocked my arrival as a regular Red Bull driver.”
The 27-year-old did, however, add that he had kept on good terms with
Red Bull, and that the door remained open to him for the future. He and team-mate
Scott Speed endured a troubled 2007 campaign at the small Faenza-based outfit, with constant speculation over the safety of their positions and the American publicly accusing the team of failing to support its two drivers.
“I still have links with Red Bull,” Liuzzi told Austrian website
motorline.cc, “and I still speak with (owner) Didi Mateschitz. He thought it was ok that I leave Toro Rosso.
“We wanted to keep some kind of co-operation going, because we have had a great partnership. We don't know what will happen next, but we shall see. It is not impossible that I will go back there one day.”
The dominant 2004 International F3000 champion – the last in the series' history before its conversion to GP2 – has begun 39 races in the top flight for both STR and Red Bull Racing, notching up five points. He said he was not ready to explore other opportunities just yet, underlining that he felt ‘too young' to turn his back on grand prix racing.
“
Formula 1 is still the most important category in the world,” he explained, “and I have the feeling that I can give a lot more to the sport.”
