Toro Rosso has confirmed that Sebastien Bourdais’s has been dropped from the team with immediate effect, bringing an early end to the Frenchman's disappointing second Formula 1 season.
However, Bourdais’s expected replacement Jamie Alguersuari has yet to be officially named as Sebastien Buemi’s new team-mate from the Hungarian Grand Prix, with STR to delay the announcement until shortly before next week’s race.
In a statement on Thursday morning announcing Bourdais’ departure mid-way through the campaign, team boss Franz Tost admitted the former Champ Car king had not performed to expectations in his second season at the team after being regularly outpaced by rookie Buemi.
“In Sebastien’s second year with us, the partnership has not met our expectations and therefore we have decided to replace him as from the next round of the World Championship, the Hungarian Grand Prix,” Tost said.
The team added that his replacement would be confirmed shortly before next week’s Budapest round, with its Spanish 19-year-old reserve driver Alguersuari set to become the youngest driver in F1 history.
Bourdais’s departure brings to an end a largely disappointing 27-race F1 stint, in which he scored just six points.
After finally arriving in motorsport’s premier series for the start of the 2008 season after winning four consecutive Champ Car titles in America, the 30-year-old initially struggled to make his mark alongside Sebastian Vettel at STR despite scoring two points on his debut in Australia.
However, as Toro Rosso made giant strides towards the front of the field in the second half of the campaign Bourdais’s form began to improve and would likely have added significantly to his eventual four-point tally but for several unfortunate incidents when running strongly in races.
But after seeing off the challenge of Super Aguri refugee Takuma Sato during winter testing to hold onto his seat for 2009 alongside new Red Bull protégé Buemi, Bourdais struggled to match the 20-year-old’s pace in the opening nine races of the season.
Mounting speculation ahead of last weekend’s Nurburgring race suggested Bourdais had to perform strongly in Germany to save his drive, but he set the slowest time in qualifying and then retired from the race early on with a hydraulic problem.
Although reigning British F3 driver Alguersuari is expected to take over Bourdais’s seat from the Hungaroring, five-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb has been heavily linked to get a run-out in the seat next to Buemi towards the end of the season
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