Sebastien Buemi In A Spin In Sepang

Sunday's race in Sepang saw some of the worst conditions ever for a F1 Grand Prix, with a torrential downpour seeing the red flag waved and the race cut short.

At the time of the red flag, Sebastien Buemi was in 16th position, meaning that's the position he finished in. Apart from retirees Kovalainen and Kubica, he finished only in front of the two Force India cars.

Buemi had been in position 7 or 8 shortly before the red flag, but then spun off into the gravel and stalled the car, resulting in his drop to position 16. This follows a) his spin in Qualifying which saw him start the race at the back of the grid and b) a front wing change after the first lap of the race, due to being pushed wide at the exit of the last corner.

Buemi's Toro Rosso teammate, Sebasiten Bourdais managed to finish 10th and was disappointed that the race wasn't restarted, because he thought he had a chance of improving that - so Bourdais clearly won the battle of the STR teammates this time around.

The Bourdais article also carries some quotes from Buemi about the spin:

The extreme tyres were completely gone, like driving on slicks and I slowed down, but obviously not enough for the amount of water, so I spun, went into the gravel and stalled.

I am disappointed as the spin at the end was my mistake and it is on days like this that we should have picked up some points.

So all told, not a great weekend for Sebastien Buemi.

There is a lot of silver lining to the weekend: Buemi was faster than Bourdais in Practice; he drove well in the race up until the spin; he spun because of worn tyres in the extreme conditions rather than pure driver error; etc. Also, new drivers are going to make mistakes, you have to give Buemi some scope to learn and develop.

However, it's ultimately a disappointing weekend for Sebastien Buemi. I bet he will be desperate to get to the next race in Shanghai, in two weeks time, where he'll get the chance to come up with a better result.