Battle Of The STR Teammates

Today I read a preview of the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship, by Totoroche, which includes a look at STR’s chances for the upcoming season.

There’s nothing too startling in the preview - like most previews, it says that Toro Rosso will be hard pressed to emulate their success of 2008. That’s probably a no brainer. However I want to mention the preview because of the previews of the STR drivers.

Of Sebastien Buemi it says:

Buemi competed with some distinction in GP2 last year, and arrives in Formula 1 on the back of some impressive early testing form. To expect more than a point or three would, however, probably be unreasonable.

Once again, that’s nothing too startling. That matches with what most people are saying, but I found the part about “a point or three” being a reasonable expectation quite interesting. I guess that’s probably about right. If Sebastien Buemi scores more than a handful of points, then that would probably be a successful season.

That said, it’s shaping up as an unpredictable season and it could be possible that Sebastien will eclipse that if things fall his way – but that would be considered a great success.

More interesting is Totoroche’s analysis of Sebastien Bourdais (Sebastien Buemi’s STR teammate), which basically says that Bourdais is underrated, was unlucky last year and is deserving of a second chance in F1. I actually agree wholeheartedly with this. They go on to say about Bourdais:

Expect him to have the measure of the other Seb this time.

So Totoroche predicts that Sebastien Bourdais will beat Sebastien Buemi in the battle of the STR teammates in 2009. I actually think that Sebastien Buemi will prove to have what it takes to see off this challenge, although I think it will be a hard fought battle and I expect Bourdais to get off to a better start due to his experience.

What do you think? Leave a comment to let me know who you think will win the battle of the Sebs.