Sebastian Bourdais
If history has taught us anything about F1, it’s that finishing ahead of Sebastian Vettel as a team-mate is one of the hardest tasks a driver can accomplish. Red Bull and Toro Rosso quickly realised Bourdais wasn’t up to it, but the manner of his swift exit was ruthless.
Even in the early days of the Red Bull driver programme, Red Bull had a knack for being impatient. Bourdais was a four-time consecutive ChampCar champion when he joined their sister team alongside Vettel in 2008.
But as the German celebrated a historic win in Monza and picked up several points finishes, Bourdais struggled to match his level and he was ditched after just 18 months, with Jaime Alguersuari replacing him instead midway through the 2009 campaign.
To this day, Bourdais claims Toro Rosso sacked him by text after he reached an out-of-court settlement. “The way they [Toro Rosso] got rid of me was very disappointing. [Former Red Bull owner] Dietrich Mateschitz was at the Nurburgring but he did not speak with me. He did not call me. Everything was done by SMS, which to me has no style,” he told AutoHebdo.
But then-team boss Franz Tost insisted this was not the case: “I told Monsieur Bourdais personally that he is not going to drive any more and did not write any SMS.”
