Sebastien Buemi shocked at his axing from Toro Rosso’s driver line-up of 2012 – Formula 1 news
Sebastien Buemi said he was shocked at the news of losing his seat with Toro Rosso for the 2012 season.
“I was shocked,” he said. “I had been told a decision would be made before the end of the year, but I was under the impression that my contract would be extended. I was not expecting it at all.”
Buemi has been with Toro Rosso since 2009 and has improved his performances with each passing season. During the 2011 season, Buemi scored 15 points for his team which was a big improvement of 8 points for the 2010 season.
He told Blick newspaper, “I have to accept it even if it is very hard to understand.”
Buemi similar to his teammate Jaime Alguersuari for the 2011 season at Toro Rosso was very surprised at his exclusion for the 2012 season. Toro Rosso announced Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne as their line-up for 2012.
Toro Rosso maintained that they are committed to bringing in young talented drivers as they have done before. Buemi and Alguersuari have been a product of this programme for introducing and grooming the young drivers. Both the drivers were also in the Red
Bull young driver program, so have been the drivers replacing the former drivers.
Alguersuari also stated that though he was also shocked at his exclusion from the line-up he does not hold anything against Toro Rosso as he also got the opportunity through this programme.
Buemi suggested that he would look for a race seat for 2012 with other teams but admitted that there are limited options at the moment, and he might have to look for a reserve driver role for the upcoming season.
“Maybe there are options, but it's still too early to say anything,” he added. “Fortunately in the past years I have built up many contacts with most of the teams. So this pays off now.”
It would be interesting to see who Buemi finally joins, there are a few midfield teams looking for drivers, but they are also looking for sponsors to go with their drivers, and if Buemi can bring in sponsors he might get a race seat instead of a reserve
driver role.
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