Sebastien Buemi signed off his rookie season in F1 with a second consecutive point for Scuderia Toro Rosso at the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix yesterday as the Red Bull-owned Italian team continued to show its recent return to form. He also beat the official Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Giancarlo Fisichella in the Ferrari-powered STR4. The Swiss youngster, who completed 55 laps of the Yas Marina circuit on Sunday evening and finished 41.2 seconds behind the race winner, also survived a brush with the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica along the way and now ends the season in 16th position in the drivers' championship with 6 points. Toro Rosso meanwhile completes the year with 8 constructors' points (the other two points being earned by Sebastien Bourdais who was later sacked by the team) and the Faenza-based outfit finishes 10th and last out of the teams, five points adrift of 9th placed Force India.

Buemi's team mate Jaime Alguersuari had a difficult race after starting from 14th place on the grid. He mistakenly stopped in the sister Red Bull team's pit to refuel, just as they were expecting eventually race winner Sebastien Vettel in and the Spanish youngster was frantically waved away. He retired on lap 17 with gearbox problems. Alguersuari, who made his F1 debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, eventually competed in 8 races this year for Scuderia Toro Rosso but was never remotely close to scoring points at anytime.

Sebastien Buemi (STR4-03) Pos. 8th: “Getting another point today, after also scoring in Brazil, is a nice way to end the season. The entire team has done a great job over the past four races and so I am looking forward to next year. At first, I was having trouble matching Rosberg’s pace, but I picked up more and more speed as the race progressed. I lost a bit of time behind Nakajima, but overall I think I did the best I could and it was a great race. My fight with Robert was quite fair, as I think I left him enough space.”

Jaime Alguersuari (STR4-01) Retired: “My start was not too bad, but I got a bit boxed in and on the first lap, I made a mistake at Turn 19, losing the rear of the car and going onto the grass, which is when I lost a few places. Then later, I had to stop with a gearbox problem as a couple of gears were disabled, so I decided to pit. But there was a misunderstanding because I came into the Red Bull Racing pit next door as my team was not expecting me. I therefore drove back onto the track and had to retire there when the gearbox broke.”