BEIJING, March 20 -- Red Bull will sell its Toro Rosso Formula One team before 2010 because of a change in the Formula One regulations, co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz has confirmed.

    "It is no big secret that we are putting the Toro Rosso team on the market," he told Swiss Website (www.motorsport-aktuell.com) after last weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

    "The regulations are being changed for 2010. By then there can be no more synergies in either the design or the construction of our Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams," he added.

    "For that reason I see it as essential that we concentrate on one team. We will not be selling Toro Rosso during the 2008 season, but before 2010."

    Italian-based Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, is co-owned by Austrian energy drink billionaire Mateschitz and compatriot Gerhard Berger.

    Honda-backed Super Aguri, which is using a modified version of Honda's 2007 car, has recently been sold to the British-based Magma Group and will also have to build its own car by 2010.

    Toro Rosso opened the season with more points than Red Bull, with French rookie Sebastien Bourdais finishing seventh on his debut in Australia on Sunday. He is partnered by Germany's Sebastian Vettel this year.

    Red Bull has Australian Mark Webber and Briton David Coulthard as its drivers.

    Meanwhile, McLaren has said it will look into modifying its car's pitlane speed limiter system after Heikki Kovalainen accidentally activated it and lost fourth place in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

    "We'll certainly look at changing it for the future," McLaren's engineering director Paddy Lowe told the autosport.com Website Wednesday.

    "It shouldn't be something you can pick up by accident when you're moving your hands around."

    The device is designed to ensure drivers do not incur penalties for breaking the speed limit when they enter and leave the pit lane.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)