Jean-Eric Vergne was ruled out of the running for the Red Bull seat despite outscoring Daniel Ricciardo © Sutton Images Enlarge

Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost says Jean-Eric Vergne's future with the team is safe despite him missing out on the Red Bull drive.

Vergne has been ruled out of the running to replace Mark Webber next season, with Red Bull saying Daniel Ricciardo is the more prepared of the two Toro Rosso drivers while it also considers Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. With Vergne's chances appearing to be over, his future at Toro Rosso has been called in to question as the team looks to develop future Red Bull drivers.

However, team principal Franz Tost says that he is expecting Vergne to remain at Toro Rosso next season as he continues to gain more experience.

"I'm convinced that Jean-Eric Vergne will race next year for Toro Rosso," Tost said. "We must not forget that Jean-Eric came later into Formula One (than Daniel) and why Red Bull Racing is thinking about racing with Daniel Ricciardo next year, it's simply because he is more experienced, he showed very good performance in the first half of the season but Jean-Eric Vergne is quite close to him. It's not that Jean-Eric is out of the team. As far as I'm thinking, next year he is with Toro Rosso."