» A little bit of the green-eyed monster?

Toro Rosso Team Principal Franz Tost has reiterated his calls for teams being able to run customer chassis’ acquired from another active competitor.

Following the Red Bull company’s purchase of the Minardi team at the end of the 2005 season, Toro Rosso has, up until the start of this season, enjoyed the used of chassis’ based on the sister chassis fielded by the Red Bull Racing team.

The new rules that came into effect this year to ban the use of customer chassis’ saw the Faenza team forced to recruit more design staff to design and construct its own bespoke chassis, currently the Ferrari-powered STR5.

“I am of the opinion that the rule is wrong,” he is quoted as saying by Germany’s Auto Bild Motorsport.

With the Red Bull Racing team having romped off into the distance with clearly the most superior car on the grid, would it be amiss to assume that Tost is feeling a little jealous?

However, he does raise a valid point from a cost-cutting perspective.

Adding that the lower-half of the grid would be more competitive if this rule were revisited, Tost also suggested: “An intensive collaboration between two teams could cut the budget in half.”

Tost also went on to stress – contrary to rumours doing the rounds that the team could be sold by its parent company – that the current relationship with Red Bull owning and funding two teams is working well.

“I don’t see any signs of a sale. In the [finance company] Money Service Group from Liechtenstein we also have our first own sponsor,” he said.

“[The relationship with Red Bull] works perfectly: Red Bull [Racing] going for the World Championship, and Toro Rosso working with the next generation [of drivers].

Sébastien Buemi and Jamie Alguersuari are on the right track and have great futures,” he added.