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 |
