Wolff turned down offer to buy Toro Rosso

It has emerged that Toto Wolff turned down Dietrich Mateschitz when the Red Bull magnate offered to sell him Toro Rosso.

Wolff, who subsequently bought into Williams and is now Mercedes' new co-owner and motor sport director, said billionaire Mateschitz made the approach in 2009.

"One day, Dietrich Mateschitz landed by helicopter and offered to sell me Toro Rosso," Austrian Wolff told the French news agency AFP.

"With my company in Vienna, we analysed the business model of Toro Rosso, but having a private team doesn't work when you compare it to the hundreds of millions of euros spent by the manufacturers," he said.