Red Bull Racing driver #83-Brian Vickers has won back-to-back poles in a Toyota Camry, but to hear his boss talk, it doesn’t sound like that will make a difference on whether Red Bull remains a Toyota team. Red Bull is in its final year of its Toyota contract, and there has been speculation that Red Bull, could move to Chevrolet (without manufacturer support). But wouldn’t two consecutive poles make the team brass think twice about going to a new manufacturer, especially after being one of Toyota’s initial teams when it entered Cup in 2007? “Ask them,” Red Bull Racing general manager Jay Frye said at Infineon Raceway Saturday. “Obviously Toyota has been great to us. We’ve been one of their freshman teams and all that. We appreciate everything they’re doing and continue to do. We’re going through lots of different scenarios right now. There’s a lot going on in the world and it’s been reported that our deal is up with them at the end of the year and it’s possible they don’t want us to come back, right? It’s possible. Or it’s possible they want us to come back but they can’t for some reason do that. Anything is possible.”
Toyota Racing Development senior vice president Dave Wilson said the manufacturer wants to continue the relationship with Red Bull and there have been discussions to extend the relationship. There have been reductions in Toyota’s total racing budget, but Wilson said the manufacturer wants to have 10-12 cars on the track. “We have a great deal of loyalty to those guys,” Wilson said. “They slogged it out in the tough entry period in ’07 and obviously we should have notched a couple of victories with Red Bull. We’re certainly not looking to change that.” Frye said there is no time frame to make a decision. The other contract Red Bull needs to get finalized is the one for Vickers. Frye indicated that everything just needs a look in the corporate offices in Austria. “Everything is agreed, done, just the legalese stuff and things like that are going on right now. There’s no [issues],” Frye said.
