F1 – 2010 Driver Lineup – Alguersuari Confirmed at Torro Rosso

Torro Rosso announced today that Jaime Alguersuari will return to the team for the 2010 season as Sebastian Buemi’s teammate.  No big shock in this one, since Red Bull’s motor racing consultant Helmut Marko said earlier this week, “It will be Alguersuari. It’s just some contractual details that have to be solved, but generally it’s Alguersuari”

Marko was at the time shooting down rumors that Nick Heidfeld or Bruno Senna were lined up for the seat.  “In our considerations, Nick Heidfeld plays no role. That has nothing to do with his quality as a driver. Toro Rosso is purely a Red Bull junior team, and the budgets and many other things are closely aligned to that.”

This leaves the Renault seat as the most hotly contested property left in F1 right now, since the remaining seats are at startup teams that may be struggling to even make the grid in Bahrain.  Vitaly Petrov has been widely reported in the media to have a pot of 15 million euros for 3 years, largely from Russian companies.  This places him firmly in the lead for taking the 2nd seat at Renault, which might just leave a talented driver like Nick Heidfeld on the sidelines.

Team Driver #1 Driver #2
McLaren Jenson Button Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes GP Michael Schumacher Nico Rosburg
Red Bull Sebastian Vettel Mark Webber
Ferrari Felipe Massa Fernando Alonso
Williams Rubens Barrichello Nico Hulkenberg
Renault Robert Kubica TBA
Force India Adrian Sutil Vitantonio Liuzzi
Torro Rosso Sebastian Buemi Jaime Alguersuari
Lotus Jarno Trulli Heikki Kovalainen
Campos TBA Bruno Senna
USF1 TBA TBA
Virgin Timo Glock Lucas Di Grassi
Sauber Pedro de la Rossa Kamui Kobayashi

Related posts