Sebastien Buemi - know to some in these parts as The Moose - has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I go through stages of rating him and stages of just thinking of him as an avergae midfield driver so thought I'd put an article up there and see if the rest of you are as confused about him as me.
His junior formula record is not that impressive. He's was a front runner in the majority of series he ran in but champion in none. The season before he came into F1 he finished runner-up in GP2 Asia and 6th in proper GP2 season - including 2 wins. One of the wins came in France where he started 21st on the grid - which is pretty impressive.
He arrived in F1 with very little fanfare and you can pretty much say he's not made much louder noises since - the most viewed clip of Buemi is of course this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBVuvIPe0tc
Incidently in the interview directly after this crash the dictaphone the reporter was using also fell apart leading some to believe that Sebastien has some sort of unknown X-Man power.
Although there hasn't been much fanfare about his F1 career if you look at his record he has fared fairly well. He scored points on his debut and consistantly got the better of Sebastian Bourdais, who lets not forget was highly rated and an indie car champ when he came in at Toro Rosso, until Bourdais was dropped 9 racers into the season. In then stepped the man who has been his team-mate ever since.
Its seems to felt by most that Jamie Alguersuari is the favored son at Toro Rosso. He came in at 19 for the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009 and actually beat Buemi on his first race out (ok they were 15th and 16th but he did!). Buemi took a little time to respond to his new team-mate but showed himself to be clear number 1 with 2 points scoring finsihes in the last 2 races of 2009 which made 4 for the season and gave him a grand total on 6 points.
As 2010 started it looked like Alguersauri was going to show Buemi up as Jamie scored into the points twice whilst Buemi just had a handful of retirements. Buemi scored a good 10th placed finish at Monoco though and that seemed to spur him on. He finished in front of Alguersauri in 10 of the next 14 races - scoring points a further 3 times and giving him a total of 8 at the end of the year compared to Alguersauri's 5.
This season the pressure was on from the very start. Danial Ricciardio was sitting in the garage and it was pretty clear that Red Bull were looking to bring him into F1 and that the obvious place to do that would be Toro Rosso. Buemi seem to start well with this and beat his team-mate in all of the first 6 races ot the season scoring 3 points finishes on the way. Despite another points finish in Canada he's been overshadowed by a returning to form Alguersauri he has scored 3 points finishes in the last 3 races and has actually gone in front of Buemi in the WDC by a point. Will Buemi respond to this like he did last season and come back? Is he in contention for a seat at Red Bull if Webber leaves or will Toro Rosso put him on the scrapheap at the end of the year?
Seems very at home in F1 but does he have the potential to go and win races or is he just a good midfield driver?
what do you think?
His junior formula record is not that impressive. He's was a front runner in the majority of series he ran in but champion in none. The season before he came into F1 he finished runner-up in GP2 Asia and 6th in proper GP2 season - including 2 wins. One of the wins came in France where he started 21st on the grid - which is pretty impressive.
He arrived in F1 with very little fanfare and you can pretty much say he's not made much louder noises since - the most viewed clip of Buemi is of course this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBVuvIPe0tc
Incidently in the interview directly after this crash the dictaphone the reporter was using also fell apart leading some to believe that Sebastien has some sort of unknown X-Man power.
Although there hasn't been much fanfare about his F1 career if you look at his record he has fared fairly well. He scored points on his debut and consistantly got the better of Sebastian Bourdais, who lets not forget was highly rated and an indie car champ when he came in at Toro Rosso, until Bourdais was dropped 9 racers into the season. In then stepped the man who has been his team-mate ever since.
Its seems to felt by most that Jamie Alguersuari is the favored son at Toro Rosso. He came in at 19 for the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009 and actually beat Buemi on his first race out (ok they were 15th and 16th but he did!). Buemi took a little time to respond to his new team-mate but showed himself to be clear number 1 with 2 points scoring finsihes in the last 2 races of 2009 which made 4 for the season and gave him a grand total on 6 points.
As 2010 started it looked like Alguersauri was going to show Buemi up as Jamie scored into the points twice whilst Buemi just had a handful of retirements. Buemi scored a good 10th placed finish at Monoco though and that seemed to spur him on. He finished in front of Alguersauri in 10 of the next 14 races - scoring points a further 3 times and giving him a total of 8 at the end of the year compared to Alguersauri's 5.
This season the pressure was on from the very start. Danial Ricciardio was sitting in the garage and it was pretty clear that Red Bull were looking to bring him into F1 and that the obvious place to do that would be Toro Rosso. Buemi seem to start well with this and beat his team-mate in all of the first 6 races ot the season scoring 3 points finishes on the way. Despite another points finish in Canada he's been overshadowed by a returning to form Alguersauri he has scored 3 points finishes in the last 3 races and has actually gone in front of Buemi in the WDC by a point. Will Buemi respond to this like he did last season and come back? Is he in contention for a seat at Red Bull if Webber leaves or will Toro Rosso put him on the scrapheap at the end of the year?
Seems very at home in F1 but does he have the potential to go and win races or is he just a good midfield driver?
what do you think?
, awesome for Buemi, hopefully this will mean that he's in the frame for Webbers job in 2012. I think Red Bull have made a mistake axing him from Toro Rosso though.
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