Ultimate in talks to buy into Toro Rosso F1 team

British Formula Three competitors Ultimate Motorsport said this week they were in talks to buy a stake in the Toro Rosso Formula One team.

"We are in negotiations so I can't reveal too much about it until everything is final," Ultimate team principal Barry Walsh, whose team are backed by Angolan state oil company Sonangol, told the autosport.com website.

"We always set out with Formula One as the target," he said. "I would only have got involved in the project in the first place if I was confident we could take it all the way to F1, that is the aim.

"If our plans go the right way, I'd like to think we could be on the grid for 2009."

Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, are co-owned by Red Bull energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz and fellow-Austrian former grand prix driver Gerhard Berger.

Mateschitz said in March that Red Bull would sell their stake before 2010 because of an expected change in the Formula One regulations requiring all teams to design and build their own cars.

The current Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing cars are both designed by Red Bull technology under the guidance of former McLaren technical director Adrian Newey. Ultimate have Angolan Ricardo Teixeira as one of their F3 drivers alongside Ireland's Michael Devaney, a double winner at Snetterton last weekend.

The F3 team use a Mercedes-powered car built by the Magny-Cours based French firm Mygale.

Walsh is a former racing driver turned property developer while racing director Jonny Ostrowski was previously a McLaren Formula One race mechanic.