STR, Scudaria Toro Rosso, is currently going through a tough decision when it comes to their driver lineup.  As it stands right now, Sebastien Vettel has moved on to STR’s parent team, Red Bull Racing.  This leaves Sebastien Bourdais and an opening for the second seat.  Vettel is replacing David Coulthart after retiring from the sport this year.  If I were STR, who would I pick for their second seat?
 
There are two guys that they are currently looking at for the seat filler.  One has competed in F1 before and the other is young and new.  Both have tested blindingly quick on the testing grounds in Barcelona over the last couple of day being consistently at the top of the time sheets.  Takuma Sato, the previous F1 driver for BAR Honda and Super Aguri (Super Friends as they were most commonly known for on pit row) has been faster than his testing competitor Sebastien Buemi.  Buemi has followed up the ranks just like most of the other F1 drivers and is now on the brink of entering F1.  Now the question STR needs to ask themselves, is which route do they want to go?  Bourdais is well known for good communication on car setup, but his pace throughout the races has been good but not great.  There are times when he’s well off the pace and there are times when he’s in points scoring positions.  With the experience of another veteraned racer in Takuma Sato this could help accelerate the progress of the car’s development.  The drawback is that both Sato and Bourdais are not considered “young” in F1 standards, but they are not “old” either.  Buemi is “young blood” though.  Vettel was young blood when he started and is still young to F1 standards.  At this time, I believe that he is the youngest F1 driver to have scored points at the age of 19 (raced for BMW after Kubica’s accident).  “Young blood” is nice to have on a team because you don’t have to worry so much about bad habits.  You can mold the driver the way that you want and get the driver to believe in your processes.  STR would be able to “develop” the driver around the car.  So what do you do?

If it were up to me though, I believe that I would still pick Takuma Sato.  His experience in F1 is more than Bourdais and he’s not an unexpected driver off the track.  He represents his sponsors well (I’m not saying that Buemi or Bourdais do not represent well of their sponsors) and is respected on the race track… well, except if your Michael Schumacher.  I’m not sure if he’s still upset about that spin in his closing races to retirement.  However Michael Schumacher is also retired so there should be no concern there.  Sato is quick to adapt and with Buemi being so new to F1 (but not the sport) his adaptability is still questionable.  However, he got this far which still says that he has some ability to adapt.  The drawback is that Sato is still unknown when it comes to race performance.  Will he be able to bring hope to the team with a win like Vettel?    I guess there’s only one way to find out… 

On that note, I think that whatever choice STR decides to go with, they will still have an uphill battle in every effort to break the bottom half of the grid.  Good luck STR and we hope to see you at the top… just not ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.  (-_^)