Scuderia Toro Rosso STR4

Scuderia Toro Rosso revealed today their 2009 challeneger – STR4. The car was built (same as Red Bull’s RB5) by Red Bull Technology. And while Toro Rosso’s technical director Giorgio Ascanelli insists the new STR4 is not a rebadged Red Bull Racing RB5 it would be quite difficult to spot too many differences other than those directly related to different engine and then of course the livery. If you spot any, please list them out in the comments ! The STR4 should be the last Toro Rosso car built by Red Bull. From 2010 Toro Rosso should built their own car to comply with the regulations that do not allow teams running customer cars.

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F1Wolf

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Sebastien Buemi will become the 5th Toro Rosso race driver since the team appeared on the grid in 2006. It will be interesting to watch what direction his Toro Rosso (and F1) carreer will take. People say that when there is a chance to race in F1 one has to grab as it may never ever come again. But grabbing the chance in wrong time in such an unforgiving team as Toro Rosso is may result in very short F1 career …

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F1Wolf

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The waiting is over, the 2009 F1 seat is secure for Bourdais

Toro Rosso took their time but at the end they made the decision that many would consider being the right one. They chose Sebastien Bourdais over Takuma Sato for 2009 season. This decision also ends speculations about Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello possibly joining the Faenza team following collapse of Honda F1 project. This is what Le Seb had to say:

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F1Wolf

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With the teams revealing their 2009 Formula One cars we also have chance to see some of the 2009 F1 drivers helmets. Here they come, including the new yellow helmet of Jenson Button . I will be adding more (or better) pictures as they become available.

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F1Wolf

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With all the eyes focused on future of the Brackley team formerly known as Honda we tend to forget that there is one more team with uncertain future also looking for a buyer – Scuderia Toro Rosso. The talk about Honda being suited by several interested parties may be encouraging for Red Bull. If there indeed are several parties in talk with Honda that means that even in the current conditions there are people interested in entering Formula 1. When (if) Honda is sold some of the loosing bidders may turn their eye to Toro Rosso. May, if the team is assured of future existence. Some sponsors on board would probably also do no harm to longe term prospects of the former Minardi team.

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F1Wolf

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Sebastien Bourdais, no plan B yet

Testing, ugly cars, accidents, drivers future speculations and ideas of those in charge make this off season rather interesting .

We are all yet to digest Ecclestone’s idea of having drivers rewarded with medals instead of points and we have FOTA coming with their suggestions to spice up the show. The teams (at least some of them) are dicsussing some radical change to to qualifying (yet again). From what has been said it does look like the plan is to have sort of elimination race on Saturday to decide the grid.

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F1Wolf

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Sebastien Bourdais still not assured of his 2009 F1 drive and increasingly frustrated

End of 2007 season meant also the end of pay drivers in Formula 1. The last of them disappeared with Spyker team and so we haven’t seen any of them on the 2008 Formula 1 grid. This might also be one of the reasons why no driver lost his seat this year (except of course Super Aguri guys).

But if we are to believe Sebastien Bourdais (interview for GPUpdate.net), the pay driver institution is about to return.

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F1Wolf

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Sebastien Bourdais - should he stay or should he go ?

I started my 2008 F1 driver rankings yesterday with Part 1, here comes Part 2 covering the ranks 15 to 11:

15th David Coulthard

DC almost made it to Part 1 but at the end I found him a bit less disappointing than Heikki Kovalainen. Although Coulthard scored the only podium for Red Bull this year he was still clearly outperformed by his team mate. The 2:16 qualifying statistics says it all. Coulthard also got involved in many racing incidents ruining several races for himself and for few other drivers. The way the final race of his F1 careers went pretty much sums up his 2008 season.

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F1Wolf

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Sebastien Bourdais and Felipe Massa, 2008 Japanese GP

Another race, another controversy. And yet again it involved both main title contenders Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa.

Incident no 1 – Race start – Hamilton (and Kovalainen) vs Kimi

I watched the video replay of the race start few times (at the moment you can see it here). Raikkonen had quite good start and it looked like he is ahead of both McLarens. Kovalainen was next to him, Hamilton behind. Hamilton however seemed to be quicker and squeezed between Kovalainen and Raikkonen. Watching it from the front it looked like these three are next to each other. Then just before turning into the first corner Hamilton moved in Raikkonen’s direction leaving Raikkonen with nowhere to go but straight. It is hard to say if Hamilton touched Raikkonen or not. Raikkonen says that both McLarens hit him, Hamilton (when commenting on the penalties imposed on himself and Massa) insisted that he did not hit anybody:

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F1Wolf

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Kazuki Nakajima, Williams

We entered the last month of 2008 Formula 1 season and after a short period of silence the drivers market there seems to be a lot happening on drivers market.

Williams team confirmed yesterday their 2009 drivers line up will remain the same as this year – Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima. Rosberg’s drive has been confirmed for a while already, Nakajima being the Toyota boy doing a decent rookie job was expected to continue. No real surprises here.

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F1Wolf

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