Sebastien Bourdais to Join Toro Rosso
Friday August 10, 2007
Finally, the Toro Rosso team today announced that Sebastien Bourdais will join the team for the 2008 Formula 1 season. This is great news for fans both of Bourdais and Formula 1. Anyone who has watched Bourdais's career closely knows that it was one of the most inexplicable anomalies of Formula 1 that this driver had not made it to the sport. For me, it came down to raising one of the most fundamental questions about F1: Does F1 really want - and have - the best racing car drivers in the world? As long as the sport continued to ignore this super talent, I had that question returning again and again in my mind. I no longer do.
Comments
I share your doubts about F1 overlooking Bourdais for the past two years while lesser talents ride around clogging the tracks. The shame is that he has to race for a team that cannot get their act together, has no focus, and has cars that are little better than show cars. All of the top teams should have been after him. Maybe they will in 09.
You’re right that although this is great, it’s still bizarre that the top teams didn’t go for him.
I had the pleasure of watching Boudrais in this year’s Toronto Grand Prix. Despite Champ Car’s slow slide into irrelevance and obscurity, the race was quite exciting due to changing weather conditions. Sadly, Boudrais was knocked out at the hairpin at the end of Lakeshore after being rear-ended by some over-anxious chump. It was right in front of us though and I got some good pics. I was surprised and annoyed at the nearby crowd of white trash who booed him quite vociferously alighting from his car. They should really stick to supporting their own fat menace Paul Tracy (or just watching NASCAR where they belong). I will be pleased to see Boudrais drive in F1 where he will hopefully fare better than Scott Speed.
Bourdais will struggle to just get into the points next year. He is a good driver but just not in the same league as the top F1 drivers, he doesn’t have the raw talent of Hamilton, the coolness of Raikkonen or the ferocious drive of Alonso. And I am not talking about the speed…