FORMULA 1: Bourdais fired after consistent poor showings

Ever since Turkey, its been the worst kept secret in Formula 1, but today Toro Rosso confirmed the inevitable that the French driver and multiple Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais got his marching orders from team principal Franz Tost.

And to be honest, in my view, this had been coming for a long time, ever since he was hired to drive for the team for the 2008 season, Bourdais was immediately shunted into the shadows by his more illustrious teammate Sebastian Vettel, thats despite a stunning drive in his very first race in Australia where he was running 4th until problems late on. From then on, apart from just missing out on a podium finish in Belgium, Bourdais was consistently outclassed by both Vettel, then Buemi and even the Force India's and just didnt look at ease or in his proper place in Formula 1. Infact, in qualifying for the German GP, he was nearly 1 and a half seconds adrift at the back of the field behind the next best driver, that really was the final nail in his coffin. Had he come in as expected a few years down the line when he excelled in the old feeder category Formula 3000 instead of trying his luck in America, his prospects may have been more fruitful.

But instead Bourdais goes down in my opinion as one of a select few of F1 failures that had failed to live up to the hype and just goes to show that consistent success in lower and/or equivilent Formulae does not guarantee success at the highest level of them all, Formula 1.

So then where does this leave Toro Rosso's number 11 seat to partner the promising Sebastien Buemi? Well if reports are to be believed, then there is one all but confirmed, the Spanish youngster Jaime Alguersuari, the current British Formula 3 champion who if he gets the drive will beat New Zealander Mike Thackwell's 28 year long record of the youngest ever F1 participant, the former F2 ace was just 19 years and 5 months old when he took to the grid for Tyrrell in Canada 1980. But its not just the young spaniard that has been reported to take the seat.

One of which would cause shock both in F1 and the World Rally Championship, the reigning 5 time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb. A move as such as this would be a world first but he does have circuit experience, he has competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours for a start and has had many F1 tests for the likes of Renault and Red Bull. Another is the Japanese driver Takuma Sato, who has been in the F1 wilderness after the financial demise of the Super Aguri team last year and had tests for Toro Rosso over the winter. The other driver in the frame is Bruno Senna, who was all set to bag a drive with Honda before they made their shock announcement that they would quit the sport.