Red Bull remain impartial on V10 issue

As was first revealed by autosport.com, Super Aguri and Midland F1 wrote to the FIA last week asking for Toro Rosso to be excluded from scoring constructors' championship points this year, with other teams and manufacturers expected to support their campaign with a letter before the San Marino Grand Prix.

However, Red Bull Racing's sporting director Christian Horner has said that his team will not be drawn into the row - even though he was forced to see Toro Rosso's Scott Speed edge his driver David Coulthard across the line in Melbourne last weekend prior to his time-penalty.

"We remain impartial," he said about the V10 situation. "Obviously their (Toro Rosso's) relative performance is pretty respectable, but that is not just down to the engine, it is down to the car.

"It is a pretty decent car and they have two good drivers so their performance in Australia looked good. In a straight-line they are quick, but their overall laptime is not significantly that far ahead - so it something not worth getting too excited about."

Horner believes that the performance of the V10 engines have been flattered at the start of the season by the fact that other teams have had to peg back the performance of their V8s because of worries about reliability.

"As the development of the V8 comes on stream, their position will remain static. So they were always going to be looking in pretty decent shape for the first few races and, as we head back to Europe and the development starts coming through, that benefit will start to negate itself so it shouldn't become an issue."