16 – Sébastien Buemi

Credit: Peter Fox/Getty Images

Stats

• Birthday: 31st October 1988
• Nationality: Swiss
• Lives: Bahrain
• Website: buemi.ch

Career

Sebastien’s career by year. The bracketed number is his final position at the end of the series.

• 2006 – F3 Euroseries (13th)
• 2007 – F3 Euroseries (2nd), GP2 Series (21st)
• 2008 – GP2 Asia (2nd), GP2 Series (6th)
• 2009 – Formula 1 (16th)
• 2010 – Formula 1

2010 Preview

From the F1 Digest 2010 Season Preview:

For 2009, Buemi joined a team of two Sebastiens and he was the last Seb standing at the end of the year. Whilst Bourdais waved goodbye mid-season, the team stuck by Buemi as he picked up some points. He began and ended the year well, tucking a couple of 7th and 8th place finishes under his belt. The middle of the season wasn’t so straight forward, but that was more to do with the car than anything else. The surprise of seeing a Toro Rosso in the top ten qualifying shoot out wore off after a while, and Buemi always seemed to be pushing as hard as he could. That meant the occasional slip up of course, we all know the plaintive wail from Seb as he crashed out of qualifying on a lap where he was three tenths up.

Buemi is clearly a hand to be trusted, as in 2008 he was given the chance to drive the Medical Car when the regular driver became ill. Last year, I mentioned how impressive it was that Buemi had been signed up for Toro Rosso almost immediately, whilst the team dithered about choosing Bourdais. This year, he was also confirmed very quickly, whilst his teammates contract took a little longer to be sorted. The team obviously have faith in him, and hopefully this year they can give him the car to repay them.