Disappointing Weekend For Buemi At Silverstone

It was another disappointing weekend for Sebastien Buemi at Silverstone. His performance was reasonable, but the STR4 just wasn't fast enough.

Toro Rosso have struggled to find pace in recent races and there was little change at the British Grand Prix. The STR4 may have been slightly faster thanks to some upgrades, but it didn't improve relative to the other teams, who also made upgrades.

Buemi also encountered difficulties during Qualifying, which meant he qualified last. First, he missed most of Final Practice with a hydraulic issue, then had a problem with his gearbox's quick-shift function during Qualifying itself.

Afterwards, Buemi said:

It's been a bad weekend so far, with a few small problems and if you don't get many clean laps without any trouble, then when you go into qualifying, you really pay the price.

It is disappointing that I couldn't use the quick-shift on the gearbox in qualifying, which cost me at least three tenths and that is a big difference here.

But that's racing and now we will have to see what we can do tomorrow. It will be a difficult race whatever happens.

Prophetic words.

Buemi had a difficult race, finishing dead last (of those who finished in a classified position).

He started on the back row of the grid, where he was in good company - he lined up next to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, the reigning world champion who's fortunes have taken a turn for the worse this year.

Interestingly, the other Toro Rosso (Sebastien Bourdais) and the other McLaren (Heikki Kovalainen) ended up taking each other out, but that's another story.

During the race, Buemi's car had problems with maintaining speed on worn tyres, which seemed to be the main cause of the STR4's lack of speed. After the race, he said:

It was a very tough race and we struggled to be on the pace and now we must try and work out why, as we have been quicker than this earlier in the weekend.

On worn tyres especially, the car was very difficult to drive.

This problem, combined with his low position on the grid, meant that Buemi really struggled during the race.

Still, apart from the slow car, Buemi himself did reasonably well at Silverstone. He drove a solid race with few errors and the mere fact that he finished the race shouldn't be overlooked. It was his second race in a row where he made it to the finish line, after a run of three grand prixs where he didn't finish.

Looking forward, it seems Toro Rosso aren't expecting much improvement for the next race in Germany, with Buemi saying:

Nurburgring will be another difficult weekend, but we are due to get some updates for Hungary, which will allow us to be more competitive and perform much better.

Let's hope those updates when they come through in the following race in Hungary, give Sebastien Buemi a substantial boost in performance.

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!