Toro Rosso season review

Between now and Christmas, ITV.com/f1 will look back through all 10 Formula 1 teams' 2009 seasons and their highs and lows.

In the first feature, we review how Toro Rosso slipped back to the tail of the field in 2009 after its remarkable 2008 season with Sebastian Vettel.


This was the final year that Toro Rosso was allowed to use chassis handed down from Red Bull.

It was also the first year that Red Bull came up with a winning car... and yet Toro Rosso took a big step backwards in 2009.

There was no repeat of the shock victory that Sebastian Vettel delivered at Monza a year earlier, or any hint of a podium, and having beaten the senior team to sixth in the 2008 constructors’ standings, this year Toro Rosso slipped to last – the worst result of its short history.

The most obvious change for this season was the absence of Vettel, the rising superstar being promoted to RBR where he would immediately become a title challenger.

That led to a protracted driver shoot-out at Toro Rosso over the winter, as Red Bull protege Sebastien Buemi, incumbent Sebastien Bourdais and Super Aguri refugee Takuma Sato all tried to stake a claim to an STR drive.

Red Bull’s seal of approval put Buemi at the top of the list, but money looked set to decide the second seat – and Bourdais had none of it (and little enthusiasm for finding any), and Sato didn’t have quite enough of it.

Ultimately the winter cost cuts convinced STR its need for extra finance was less desperate than it originally feared and so it stuck with Bourdais, hoping he would blossom in his second year of Formula 1 and help Buemi get up to speed.

But it didn’t quite work out like that.

Despite his unspectacular junior record, Buemi proved the quicker of the pair from the outset, leading Bourdais home as they stayed cool amid the usual Melbourne chaos to take seventh and eighth in the season opener.

Buemi also starred in China – breaking into the top ten in dry qualifying then fighting in the top six in the wet race and taking a point despite smashing his front wing when he ran into race leader Vettel during a safety car period, thankfully without harming the Red Bull.

Bourdais’ only highlight was eighth in Monaco, where Buemi had still out-qualified him before colliding with Nelson Piquet in the race, while the lowlight was definitely the Catalunya first corner tangle that saw Bourdais driving over the top of Buemi as they tried to avoid trouble ahead.



There was no doubting Bourdais’ talent, but in 18 months in F1 there had only been fleeting glimpses of it hidden among endless complaints that the car was incompatible with his driving style.

A less than positive presence in the garage, the Frenchman’s moody nature could have been indulged had he delivered on-track – but he wasn’t doing so, and the axe fell after Germany.

Replacement Jaime Alguersuari, the latest product of the Red Bull talent ladder, was the reigning British Formula 3 champion and a talented young prospect, but had only done straightline tests prior to his F1 debut in Hungary.

STR’s theory was that with testing now so restricted and Bourdais getting nowhere, it had nothing to lose by throwing Alguersuari in at the deep end and letting him use the remaining grands prix as a rehearsal for 2010.

After a media furore over his inexperience died down, Alguersuari was left in peace to get on with that learning process, and acquitted himself fairly well, although by the time of his arrival the team had fallen to the back – left standing as others accelerated development programmes.

Toro Rosso’s lack of resources meant it was hard pressed to keep up, and the upgrades that turned RBR into a world-beater only reached its sister team for the Hungarian GP, and it would be several more races before the small team and its novice drivers got the best from the package.

That breakthrough came in Japan, where Buemi in particular was staggeringly fast on his Suzuka debut.

A podium challenge looked possible after practice, but the drivers perhaps got carried away in their enthusiasm for suddenly having a quick car at a mega venue, resulting in four crashes – including a massive 130R shunt for Alguersuari in the race – in two days and zero points from the weekend.

Buemi stayed out of trouble in Brazil and Abu Dhabi though, and ended the year with two straight top ten starts and two more points finishes.

Normally such a strong end to the season would mean momentum could be carried through to next year’s campaign, but with Toro Rosso’s dispensation to use Red Bull chassis now expired, the underdog squad must create its own car for the first time since its Minardi days.

That’s a big step after four years as a customer, even though it did retain some of its design capacity, so 2010 could prove as low-key as this season for the hard-working team.

Toro Rosso’s 2009 highlight: Buemi’s heroics in the wet in China.

Lowlight: The team’s Spanish Grand Prix weekend ending with two mangled cars within seconds of the race start.