Catching Up On Sebastien Buemi Before Turkish Grand Prix

In the lead in to the Turkish Grand Prix, I want to have a quick look at some of the news about Sebastien Buemi over the last week or two.

Buemi Not Beating Himself Up

First, there was the Buemi not 'beating himself up' over rookie growing pains article, where Sebastien faced up to his setbacks over the last few races. As the article points out:

the young Swiss ace's tally from the last three races in Bahrain, Spain and Monaco has read 17th-DNF-DNF respectively

In particular, the last two races have been very tough for Buemi. First, his STR teammate Sebastien Bourdais ran into the back of him in Barcelona, then it was Buemi's turn, punting out Renault's Nelsinho Piquet at Monaco.

However, Buemi is remaining positive, as seen by his following comments:

I've had three difficult weekends in the last three races. In Bahrain I was unlucky to pick up a piece of Kubica's car that got wedged in my front wing, in Spain someone drove into me and in Monaco I made a mistake. At the moment when these things happen, I find them hard to deal with, but afterwards I don't let them bother me. I tell myself I'm in Formula 1 trying to do the best I can, so there is no point in beating yourself up over what's happened.

He then looks forward to doing better in Turkey. Let's hope he does! Bring it on!

Turkey Grand Prix - Practice

As reported by ITV, Beumi had a tough Istanbul baptism, failing to get the best out of his Toro Rosso car, and finishing last in the time for both Practice sessions.

Buemi made the following comments following Practice:

My first day in an F1 car at this track was a very difficult one.

On the plus side, we had no mechanical problems, so we did a high mileage.

That means at least we have a lot of data to analyse to work out why we are slow and hopefully find a better set-up for tomorrow.

At the moment, it’s difficult to say where we are, although obviously we are not where we want to be.

The main problem today was that we could not get the most out of the tyres.

Compared to the others, we are not too bad on a long run, but on new tyres, it wasn’t working one hundred percent.”

Okay, so something wrong with the setup and problems with the tyres. It's not promising to be a good weekend for Sebastien Buemi.

After his last three races, he really could do with a positive performance at Istanbul, but it's looking like he's not going to get it.

Turkish Grand Prix - Qualifying

Qualifying is not long finished at Istanbul and there's not much to report for Sebastien Buemi.

Buemi was knocked out in Q1 and will start in position 18 on the grid in tomorrow's race. Compared to most of his Qualifying performances this year, that's rather disappointing. Then again, it's only to be expected following his difficulties getting the best out of his car in Practice.

There was a silver lining to the cloud: Once again, Sebastien Buemi out-qualified his Toro Rosso teammate Sebastien Bourdais, who finished last in P20.

I guess under the circumstances, Buemi has to be aiming to a) finish the race and b) finish in front of his teammate.

If he can do that, it will be a successful weekend for him, even if his final position isn't that great. We'll have to wait and see if he can do that - bring on tomorrow!