Gosh, Woah, Blimey, WTF – out of nowhere, not even on the rumour mill, Toro Rosso have decided to drop both Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for 2012.  In their place, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne will drive the Toro Rosso cars.

Jaime Alguersuari exits the 2011 Belgian GP, the last Belgian GP he would drive for Toro Rosso - credit: OctanePhotos.co.uk

Ricciardo has been a Red Bull protege for a long time and somewhat proven himself as much as possible in the HRT car during 2011 and as for Vergne, well there more hype around him than Sebastian Vettel has fingers.

We referred to the rather bonkers ‘Magic Roundabout’ of driver changes last week, but along with pretty much everyone else, assumed that Toro Rosso would remain the same for 2012, with neither driver performing any worse than the other – seems now that Helmut Marko saw this in a different light – i.e. neither driver impressed enough to warrant a seat for 2012.  Really hope he doesn’t expect every young bright star to win at Monza in the rain…

Ricciardo will have plenty more time behind the wheel of the Toro Rosso in 2012 - credit: octanephotos.co.uk

Anyhow, this leaves Petrov, Barrichello and the like with even less options, with only Williams and Team Lotus yet to confirm who’ll be driving their motors for 2012.  Ok, so Force India haven’t confirmed yet, but it’s more than common belief that it will be Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg taking the team forward next season – the official announcement is due on Thursday 15th December.

So what do we think folks?  Do you care, if not, why not and if you do (you should) then what are you thoughts on Toro Rosso’s shock announcement?

Let us know in the comments below.