Buemi and Alguersuari ready for Sakhir

Sebastien Buemi

After a long winter wait I am looking forward to the start of this season and even if we have had much less testing - around seven or eight days only, with much of it on a wet track - I feel much better prepared than last year. I now have a much better understanding of what happens on the race weekend, I know the circuits and have strengthened my relationship with people in the team. Even though myself and Jaime lacked experience, we had a strong end to the ’09 season and we have to rediscover that momentum now. In terms of time on track, we had more of it before the start of the last season, but only about one and a half days was in the ’09 car, while this year, we have had fifteen days, as the STR5 was ready right from the very first day of winter testing. Some teams chose to keep working on their new car design rather than test, but for us, effectively a new team, it was important to be out on track as soon as possible, not just from the car point of view, but also in terms of the team, which has quite a few new people this year, learning to all work together. What do I want from 2010? I want to be regularly in the points, I want to be in front of my team-mate and I want to do a better job than last year!

Jaime Alguersuari

Formula 1 is never going to be easy, but I firmly believe I am better prepared and should be more competitive this year. In 2009, everything happened so quickly and I didn’t know the car or the circuits, in fact I didn’t know anything! Last year, I had to learn my job at the race weekends, so having been able to test this winter has been very useful, even if I have only had about seven days in the run up to the first race. When you consider that having done half a season of Formula 1 in 2009, my first ever F1 test session was in February this year, then I think that shows how tough it was for me when I started. In 2009, every Friday practice, every qualifying session and every race was like a test session for me. Therefore, I expect 2010 to be better for me and I am happy to continue with Scuderia Toro Rosso, as I have been supported by Red Bull since I was 15 years old.

My goals and objectives are different this year, as is what the team expects of me now. As we head into the season, I expect to make progress this year and I think it will be an exciting year, for us and also for the spectators, as I think the racing should be closer and qualifying especially will be interesting with everyone running low fuel.