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Toro Rosso expect to confirm drivers soon

Scuderia Toro Rosso team owner Gerhard Berger expects to announce their drivers for the 2007 season in two weeks time

"I think in the next two weeks," the Austrian told autosport.com about the date of the announcement.

"It is more a question of firming up the deals," he added.

Toro Rosso are the only team yet no confirm their drivers, but Berger confirmed on Friday that Tonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were still on pole position to keep their seats.

Berger also said the team are still undecided on whether they will run a third driver next season, with the focus now being securing the deals with the race drivers.

"At the moment we are just focused on the two race drivers, and then we will look to see if we used a third driver or not. It is still open," he said.

Although Speed and Liuzzi remain favourites to stay at the team in 2007, Berger has made no secret of the possibility to hire Champ Cap champion Sebastien Bourdais in 2008.

The Frenchman tested for the team at the end of last year, and Berger said Toro Rosso plan to give him more track time in 2007.

"We are definitely going to try him again," Berger said. "But at the moment we are totally focused to get our car ready, so probably during the year. But with the limited testing regulations it is not easy - we want to give the maximum mileage to our drivers."

Speaking about the team's chances for the season ahead, Berger was quick to play down expectations, despite Toro Rosso's switch to Ferrari engines.

"Well, we have to be careful at the end of the day we are a very small operation," he said. "We are 130 people in the operation. It is going to be difficult to squeeze the lemon to the maximum.

"What is clear is we are going to have a better car than last year and we are going to have a better car than last year and hopefully we are going to have better drivers this year than last year because if we stay with Tonio and Scott they are both in their second year, so we should improve.

"Saying this, from the back we saw at the end a quite strong Aguri, and they are doing a good homework, so to stay ahead of them is going to take us all efforts.

"And ahead of us is Williams, and Williams is a 600 people operation and to really be able to overtake them could be difficult for us, but at least to compete with them could be some fun."

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