Bourdais laments what could have been

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS

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Monday 15th September 2008

Seb Bourdais admits it has been hard to savour Toro Rosso's debut victory when his own Italian GP was over before it started.

Bourdais was set to start Sunday's grand prix fourth on the grid, however, his STR3 refused to engage first gear resulting in him stalling the car while the rest of the field left for the formation lap.

"I couldn't put it in first gear, then when I dropped the clutch the car stalled," Bourdais explained. "That never happens because of the anti-stall, but this time it did.

"So I pressed the release and the release button stayed down. So we couldn't put it back into gear and we went a lap down."

It took a few minutes for his mechanics to get his car going, by which time his race was pretty much over and he could do little but tour the track with no hope of scoring points.

In sharp contrast his team-mate Sebastian Vettel raced to Toro Rosso's maiden F1 victory, a moment that Bourdais admits was difficult to celebrate.

"It's very difficult to enjoy it with the team in these conditions," he told Autosport. "I'm very happy for them but my race was a non-event.

"It looks like we were pretty much set for third place. I don't know if we could have set as good a pace as Sebastian, and I don't want to sound pretentious, but we would have been pretty close."

Your Comments

mezrg

"This guy is good - trust me.. He has shown his strenghts in many ways. Finishing Aussie on points on debut it self means he is no nonsense. He has just been very unlucky. hope he stays there... "

fastrack

"I realy feel bad for Sebastian Bourdais and I hope it goes better for him in the next races. I also hope he gets a second chance in the team next year."

DarkDefender

"I also hope Bourdais gets to keep his seat in F1, he really seems to be getting on top of his issues with the car and shows alot of promise. I've only seen some highlights of his time in Champ Car and it was ace. There was quite alot of agression that wouldn't sit well in F1, but that's perfectly acceptable over there."

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