Musical Sebastiens: Toro Rosso confirms Buemi for 2009
With Sebastian Vettel moving up to the Red Bull senior squad to fill the vacancy left by David Coulthard's, the motor racing community has been held in suspense, waiting for the junior Scuderia Toro Rosso team to announce their drivers for 2009. The team has now confirmed that 20-year-old Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi – part of Red Bull's driver development program, who drove in GP2 last season while acting as test driver for Red Bull Racing – will take Vettel's seat for the coming season. Buemi, whose cousin Natacha Gachnang is to headline the new Formula 2 series, actually signed before the holidays, but the news wasn't revealed until recently.The last remaining piece of the puzzle, however, remains who will drive alongside Buemi in the new season. With the exception of the former Honda team, the second Toro Rosso seat is the only one left unconfirmed. Incumbent Sebastien Bourdais and veteran Takuma Sato are both reportedly in the running, but STR is apparently in no rush to decide, leaving the filing deadline on the Thursday before the season opener in Australia as their only parameter.
[Source: F1-Live]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mobius_1 8:26AM (1/15/2009)
Pick me! Pick me! :P
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Mike 9:38AM (1/15/2009)
This story came out a week ago on f1-fanatic
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hashiryu 11:26AM (1/15/2009)
Indeed. Seriously Autoblog...If you are gonna report F1, at least try and get the story the same day...
Brad 10:13AM (1/15/2009)
I think Bourdais should get the seat. In fact I thought it was already a done deal. Bourdais did enough last year to solidify his ride in my opinion.
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Tom Winch 4:03PM (1/15/2009)
I agree. Bourdais did well enough last year. If you remember, at the beginning of the '08 season when Toro Rosso was still using the '07 car, Bourdais was consistently doing better than Vettel. After switching to the '08 car, Bourdais' performance fell off and he admitted he was having difficulty coming to terms with the new chassis until he cam on stronger at the end of the season. With an entirely new car for '09, running on slicks, with a year in F1 behind him, I think Bourdais will show the form (especially on street courses) that he showed in Champ Car winning 4 championships for Newman/Haas. I'm not saying he'll contend for the Championship, but I think he's capable of consistently scoring points for Red Bull Jr.
hyundaifans.com 11:53AM (1/15/2009)
Red bull just loves the name Sebastian dont they........
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AZZO45b 1:02PM (1/15/2009)
Depends if they keep Bourdais for '09!!! :) :)
F1Mikal 1:08PM (1/15/2009)
is it me or does this guy look like justin wilson?
F1Mikal in NYC
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