Axed Toro Rosso racer Scott Speed will almost certainly switch to the NASCAR series in 2008, it has emerged.
Although his relationships with STR chiefs Franz Tost and Gerhard Berger are over, the Californian remains strongly linked with Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz — who also owns a new team in the premier American tin-top category Nextel Cup.
“Speed drove in formula one against the world’s best drivers,” the Austrian billionaire is quoted as saying by Motorsport Aktuell, “he is courageous, and his name is a marketer’s dream — and with a cowboy hat it is perhaps complete!”
Team Red Bull is a works Toyota-supported NASCAR team.
“He would be an asset for us in NASCAR,” Mateschitz said of the 24-year-old.
