While Sebastien
Buemi crashed out early on his French team mate Sebastien
Bourdais brought his Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso home in
eighth place in Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix to collect the
final world championship point on offer. Swiss rookie Buemi
had been chasing Renault's Nelson Piquet from the beginning
of the race but ran into the back of the Brazilian youngster
on lap 11 immediately ending both drivers' participation in
the race.
Bourdais collected
his second world championship point of the year in Monte
Carlo yesterday afternoon; he is fifteenth in the drivers'
championship standings, one place behind team mate Buemi who
has 3 points. In the constructors' championship Scuderia
Toro Rosso now has 5 points which keeps then in ninth place,
but moves the Faenza, Italy-based, Red Bull-owned team to
within one point of the BMW Sauber team.
Sebastien
Bourdais (STR4-01)
“It feels good to
score points here, at what can be considered my home grand
prix as there is no French race. The team worked really hard
today. I felt that, again, I hadn’t done a good job in
qualifying, so, I can be happy to finish P8, given the small
number of incidents today. It’s another point which is
important, it’s not enough, but it’s better than nothing!
The car performed consistently, especially on the Prime tyre
although the balance wasn’t perfect. Then, on the Options I
tried to look after them as I’d had trouble with them on
Thursday. I managed the situation, as the car was moving
more and I had some degradation. Once I got ahead of my
direct rivals and there was no one within reach in front of
me, I settled into a rhythm, concentrating on bringing the
car home. I had several tricky moments, but that’s what
street racing is about. It was a fun race, with the
satisfaction of scoring a point starting 14th. If I can
improve in qualifying in the coming races, then maybe we can
hope for more, starting in Istanbul.”
Sebastien Buemi
(STR4-03)
“I didn’t have a
perfect start and I lost a position to Piquet, but it was
not going too badly. Then I just tried to overtake him, as
with Vettel slowing everyone down on the Option tyre, I
thought this might be my only chance to get back ahead of
him. I was right up behind Piquet, in his slipstream and
when I tried to pull out and make my move he went on the
brakes and I could not get out from behind him, so I ended
up pushing him all the way into the first corner. I am sorry
about this and I went and apologized to him.”
Franz Tost
“After scoring
points here last year, it seems that Monaco suits us, as
once again the ball in the Roulette wheel fell in the Red.
Buemi’s start wasn’t bad, but he got passed by Piquet. Our
car had the potential to be faster, but as usual at this
track, you end up in the barriers if you don’t have the
discipline to wait a little bit. But, in Buemi’s defence, he
did a really good job in qualifying and I see today’s
incident as another step in his learning process. I am
really happy for Bourdais, who drove a fantastically good
race, picking up a point that is very important for him and
the team. This result is good for his self confidence for
the next few races. Well done to the strategy crew, led by
Laurent Mekies. They changed the strategy a few times during
the race and it turned out to be the correct choice.”
