Red Bull Racing officials confirmed that team's contract with Scott Speed has been terminated, effectively ending a seven-year association with the brand. Earlier in the afternoon, Speed revealed on his Twitter account that he had received a termination letter as of Nov. 24.RedBull Racing responded with a laconic statement.
"We have exercised our rights to end the relationship at the end of 2010. We wish Scott the best of luck in his career."
The 27-year-old native of Manteca, Calif., finished 30th in the 2010 Sprint Cup driver's standings, scoring top-10 finishes at Atlanta in March and Daytona in July. But with Brian Vickers scheduled to return to the team following successful heart surgery -- and Kasey Kahne signed to a one-year deal before heading to Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 -- struggling to perfom storng racing results, Speed found himself as the odd man out.
Speed's racing career started in go-karts at age 10. By 18, he was driving open-wheel formula cars, winning the 2001 U.S. Formula Russell championship, and two years later, landed a Formula Three ride after winning the Red Bull Driver Search. He won a pair of European Formula Renault championships in 2004, earning him a seat in a GP2 car for 2005, which he parlayed into a third-place finish in the standings.
That same season, Speed became the first American driver since Michael Andretti to participate in a Formula One event when he was added as a test driver for the Canadian and United States Grand Prix. The following year, Red Bull purchased the Minardi team and named Speed as one of its two drivers of its junior Toro Rosso team. In the next two seasons, he made 28 starts without a top-10 finish and was released from his F1 contract in July 2007 after a dispute with his team manager Franz Tost.
However, he remained in good graces with the sponsor, and when Speed made the decision to switch to stock car racing, Red Bull served as sponsor as Speed won four times in the ARCA Series during the 2008 season. Speed also made his NASCAR national series debut, finishing 27th in the Truck race at Atlanta in a David Dollar Chevrolet. He scored his first top-10 finish one week later at Martinsville, and after moving into the No. 22 Toyota owned by Bill Davis, recorded a victory at Dover, one of his nine top-10 finishes.
When A.J. Allmendinger was released as driver of the No. 84 Toyota in October, Speed was called on to make his Cup Series debut. He finished 30th at Martinsville, but started on the front row in the season finale at Homestead, winding up 16th.
Speed's best career Cup finish came at Talladega in 2009, when he finished fifth.
