Australian GP - Toro Rosso Ferrari - RaceSebastian Vettel may have been the star of qualifying for the Toro Rosso Ferrari team, but on race day it was Sebastien Bourdais who looked to be on target to finished the Australian Grand Prix in fourth position.
With three
laps remaining, Bourdais had managed to pull a short distance ahead of the chasing duo of
Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen only for the Ferrari engine to fail. With so few finishers today at Melbourne, Bourdais takes two points away from his debut Grand Prix.
Team-mate Vettel was one of five to exit the race through contact on lap one.
Sebastien Bourdais
“It’s not the first time I’ve experienced disappointment in racing and it won’t be the last, but what is important is that the team has worked really well, reacting very quickly, getting me into pit lane as soon as the lights went off for the second safety car. It was a great call. From then on I was good to go in terms of fuel and others ahead still had to stop. It was very tough as I was under a lot of pressure from behind, first from a BMW and then it was Fernando and Kovalainen. At one stage, I decided to back off a bit, but I found I was making a few mistakes, so I pushed harder and pulled out a bit of a gap."
"I hardly dared look at the pit board, but I knew it was nearly the end of the race. At the start I was down the order and running quite heavy and I was struggling a bit. But then I got the hang of things and after the restart my radio did not work for a moment, so I was caught out by the green light. But to come from almost last to fourth was an excellent start.
I hope we get two points and in a first grand prix, that’s not too bad!”
Sebastian Vettel
“My problems began at the start when I stalled. There was nothing I could do about it as that problem was not actually my fault. That meant I dropped down the order and going into the first corner I had Kimi on the left and Jenson on the right. I tried to stay as close as possible to Kimi to give enough room to the car on the right. Then, as I turned into the corner, I felt that I had been hit on my rear right side. That spun me round and I was in the middle of a collision. Very disappointing.”
Gerhard Berger
“Bourdais proved all through the weekend that he was the right choice to put alongside Vettel. He was a bit unlucky in qualifying, but he had a fantastic race, fighting with the best he managed to keep his position even towards the end on old tyres. He made no mistakes, reading the race in the right way from beginning to end. I think we have a great team and showed a great performance all weekend."
"But the luck was not on our side and it hurts to be in a safe fourth and lose it with two laps to go. We can try again next Sunday, but fourth places don’t come that often so you have to take them when they come. One point, or maybe two, is better than nothing. At the moment we do not know what exactly caused Sebastien to stop at the end.”
Source: Toro Rosso Ferrari
