Stoddart: small teams can't survive in F1

Stoddart, who bought Minardi five years ago when the team were in danger of collapsing, sold the team to Red Bull this year to secure their future.

"Formula One will miss Minardi, but the small teams can't cut it anymore," Stoddart told Gazzetta dello Sport. "The non-stop changes to the regulations have been the final blow, as changes cost, the wrong ones too.

"Now it's all in the hands of the big manufacturers' powers, it's politics racing on the track. No one will be able to do Minardi's job with regards to young drivers. Sometimes we did it for money, I'm not denying that, but the best drivers have come through here."

Stoddart on Thursday wrote the final page in the Italian team's Formula One history when he drove the final laps of their final test.

Red Bull will rename Minardi as Scuderia Toro Rosso for next season.

Team founder Gian Carlo Minardi was proud of the team's achievements despite their lack of success. In their 21-year history the tail-enders never won a race or finished on the podium.

"I'm left with the satisfaction of having built a company where in 21 years there have been 380 employees," he said. "There are teams that use more personnel in a single GP. Among them there are people who saw with me the first and the last GP, so I'm proud of this fact.

"We missed the results, the joy of a podium. There remains the good and the bad choices, like having gifted the shares of the teams to Stoddart in order to let Minardi survive. And now Stoddart has sold them, lucky him. But I prefer to have the team in Faenza rather than to read my name over a factory in England."

Minardi admitted, however, he wouldn't do it again with F1 in its current shape.

"Maybe I'm getting old but, even if I could, I wouldn't get in today's Formula One anymore," he said.