Sebastien Buemi - Bahrain And Spanish Grand Prixs

This is a little bit of a catch up post. I've been off for about a month and although I've been keeping up with Formula 1 and watched the races, I haven't been able to blog about them. :(

I'm back now (obviously) and rather than try to catch up on the Bahrain and Spanish Grand Prixs in great detail, I thought I'd just give a brief rundown on Sebastien Buemi's performance in those two races.

Bahrain Grand Prix

Sebastien Buemi was eliminated in Q1 at Bahrain, but he managed to out qualify his Toro Rosso teammate, Sebastien Bourdais, finishing in P16 as opposed to Bourdais' P20. However, Buemi felt that he should have performed better, blaming himself for not making it through to Q2:

It should have been much better and I ought to have comfortably got through to Q2, but I made a mistake in the third sector

In the race, Bourdais turned the battle of the teammates around, finishing in P13, while Buemi finished in P17. This was Buemi's worst result in his short career (to that point - we'll get to what happened in Spain soon).

Apparantly Buemi's car picked up some debri on Lap 1 which affected his race, with Franz Tost saying:

Unfortunately, a piece of debris from a BMW ended up wedged on his front wing, which meant he suffered with understeer

All in all, not a great weekend for Sebastien Buemi in Bahrain (but better than Spain!).

Spanish Grand Prix

Sebastien Buemi got off to a decent start in Barcelona, qualifying in P15, in front of his teammate Bourdais who qualified in P17. Buemi got out of Q1 and into Q2, while Bourdai didn't. However, Buemi said that STR were hoping for more than that. He went off the track and encountered some traffic, which meant he finished a couple of places lower than he could have.

In the race, Buemi only lasted until the second corner of the first lap, when his teammate Bourdais crashed into the back of him. Buemi had to break sharply to avoid the crash between Jarno Trulli's Toyota and Adrian Sutil's Force India car, which occurred immediately in front of him. Bourdais saw cars slowing down but said there was nothing he could do.

Buemi said the following of the accident:

Then, at the exit of the second corner, Trulli spun and I had to brake to avoid him. My team mate did not see I was slowing down and could not avoid me. His car went over mine, I saw his tyre go over my head and that was it.

Ultimately, it was a very disappointing weekend for Buemi (his first retirement), although it wasn't his fault. Of course, as both Buemi and Franz Tost admitted, if he'd qualified higher, he would have been more likely to avoid being caught up in the accident. Still you can't really blame Sebastien Buemi for what happened.