Scuderia Toro Rosso today confirmed that Sebastien Bourdais will remain with the team through 2009 alongside Sebastien Buemi. The news was naturally a disappointment for former Honda protégé Takuma Sato who had been in the running for the drive.

Takuma Sato
“I am not sure what my future holds, I will be discussing with my Manager what our next steps should be. However, I strongly feel that I have unfinished business in F1 and that I still have a lot to give. I am determined to stay in top level motorsport and I will be fully focused on making a return to F1 as long as any opportunity is there."

"I want to thank all my supporters who have been absolutely fantastic with their loyalty, I will always remember these fantastic relationships we have built and hope we can one day repay this support.”

Andrew Gilbert Scott, Manager
"I am extremely disappointed that Scuderia Toro Rosso has not chosen Takuma to race for them in 2009. Taku had showed tremendous speed and commitment during the three tests he did for the team and I believe he proved to be the faster driver.
"

"Unfortunately however the team made no secret about the fact that they would need the drive to bring a substantial amount of funding to the team to secure the drive. We have all been working very hard and have been able to attract a significant amount of sponsorship to support the team but unfortunately it was obviously not enough to secure the drive."

"We would like to thank our loyal and new sponsors and also many Takuma fans for everything they did to try to help secure the Toro Rosso drive for Taku. We will now be looking ahead for the next opportunity."

E.A. © CAPSIS International

 

Please, remove that picture. She is so strange that I can't even look at her.....

 

done bro

 

Thanks

 

so he would have to pay for his seat? and then get paid from red bull? crazy sport

 

Sato had a very aggressive driving style that got him in trouble on more than one occasion from what I can remember. I'm not surprised that STR cut him to go forward with the Sebastiens.

 

was sato part of the "super best friends" i kept hearing about on speed?