Sport

Alguersuari in for Bourdais at Toro Rosso

July 22 - 28, 2009
294 views

Toro Rosso named Spanish driver Jaime Alguersuari as its replacement for the sacked Sebastien Bourdais on Monday.

The 19-year-old Alguersuari will become the youngest driver to take part in a Formula One race at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Barcelona native, a British Formula 3 champion, came up through Red Bull's young driver programme and replaces Bourdais 10 races into the season.

Although owned by Red Bull, Toro Rosso races independently of the Austrian team.

"I would like to thank Red Bull for giving me this great opportunity to race in Formula One," said Alguersuari, who was promoted to reserve driver before the German GP, where reports first began to surface that he would replace Bourdais.

"I am aware that I'm facing a very tough challenge ... coming into Formula One in the middle of a season is even harder and doing so without any testing is really difficult."

He joins Sebastien Buemi, 20, to make up the youngest

lineup on the starting grid. The Italian team fired Bourdais last week, midway through his second season







More on Sport