Red Bull reportedly still pays half of Toro Rosso's operating costs

Toro Rosso always claim to be fairly independent from Red Bull Racing, but Forbes has now reported that the Bulls still paid for half of the operating budget of their development team in 2016.

Forbes report that Toro Rosso operated on around 150 million dollars, 83 million of which came from big brother Red Bull. Comparing notes, it is apparent that Toro Rosso relatively pay less for their employees than Red Bull, as the Faenza-based team only has 326 people employed, compared to the Bulls' 800.

However, the fact that Red Bull pay as much as they do for Toro Rosso could prove to be a financial problem in 2021. As it stands with the budget cap, Red Bull's 35 million dollars they now receive at the start of the season will disappear. It will be questionable whether the energy drink producer can make ends meet for both teams in that scenario.

Another bad sign for Red Bull is that the prize money for the better team will go down significantly in an effort to make the F1 more of an even playing field. It could happen that, much like in 2011, Toro Rosso could be up for sale in three years time, simply because it will be too expensive to cover costs for both teams.

Toro Rosso eventually was taken off the market in 2011 as Red Bull couldn't find a suitable buyer. However, with the current landscape of F1, a nicely operating team like Toro Rosso is likely to get bought. Just look at Force India, where investors were jumping up and down to take them over.